A WOMAN who is accused of killing a man she met on the internet told a jury: “I’m not a murderer.”

Carol Kemp, 45, took to the stand to give evidence about the night her partner Martin Rusling, 44, died of fatal stab wounds following an incident in his Portland home.

She said she intended to kill herself with the knife and stabbed Mr Rusling ‘accidentally’.

“I’m not a murderer, I did not murder him on purpose. I’m going to regret this for the rest of my life.

“I wish the knife had gone into me and not into him,” she said.

Kemp, of Torquay, Devon, denies two charges in relation to the death of Mr Rusling on December 28 – that she murdered him and that she unlawfully killed him.

Winchester Crown Court was told that Kemp was placed in care as a six-year-old and lived in foster homes until she was 14.

Mum-of-four Kemp, originally from Burnley, Lancashire, followed her mother to Torquay, where she has lived for the last 17 years.

Kemp, who said she was on anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs, said she was in an abusive relationship before she met Mr Rusling.

“I think I was unstable. I had been constantly abused in my previous relationship. I was very edgy. I wasn't violent, I was scared of people.”

The court was told that the couple met on internet dating website Plenty of Fish in spring 2011 and after ‘a week or two’, Kemp came to Portland to meet him.

Defence counsel Joanna Greenberg told the jury the couple were then seeing each other for around eight months with Kemp visiting Mr Rusling at his home in Park Road, Easton, every fortnight. The couple spent Christmas together, Kemp said.

“I wanted to move in with him because I really loved him. He told me he was thinking about it. I told him not to mention it again because it would hurt me and cause me false hope,” she said.

Kemp said she couldn’t remember much about the evening of December 27 except that the pair went out to buy drinks and returned home.

“Martin turned round and said: ‘I was going to ask you to move in with me but I changed my mind’. I was going to go home. I couldn’t finish with him because I loved him so much.”

Kemp told the jury she picked up two knives to try and slash her wrists with and Mr Rusling threw the first one across the kitchen and tried to grab the second.

She said: “I was struggling with the knife and it went into Martin. I wanted to grab hold of him, cuddle up and have a talk. I did apologise to him.”

The trial continues.