A BRIDE-TO-BE accused of the knife murder of her fianc claimed today that his death was an accident.

Caroline Mawhood, 21, told a jury that she forgot she had a knife in her hand as she pushed Simon Gilchrist away in the kitchen of the flat they shared in Bell Farm Avenue, York.

The York mother-of-two said at Leeds Crown Court that Mr Gilchrist, 23, had been the first to pick it up, and that it had fallen to the floor when she tried to take it off him.

She remembered that shortly afterwards she had told people in the street: "I cannot take it anymore." She told the jury that by this she meant "my life and everything".

Mawhood, of Bell Farm Avenue, denies murder.

"I loved him. I loved him very much," she told the jury.

Giving evidence in her own defence Mawhood said she had a drinking problem, but had not been drinking during the afternoon of July 26, the day which ended in Mr Gilchrist's death.

She also denied cutting a former boyfriend, Roger Bradbury, with a knife on his knee.

She admitted that she had self-harmed herself with knives in the past, but not during her relationship with Mr Gilchrist.

The jury has heard that on the evening of July 26 Mawhood drank eight doubles of Bacardi and coke and assaulted a woman in The Marcia pub, Bishopthorpe.

She told the jury she could not remember the assault, though she could remember being in the pub.

She could not remember going home, but she had pictures in her head of seeing herself sitting on a sofa and then sitting on the floor in the bathroom crying.

Her next memory was of standing near the bathroom door, and seeing Mr Gilchrist leaning on the kitchen units, holding a knife in his hand.

She went towards him and put her hands on his arm when he raised it above his head to prevent her getting the knife.

She told the jury the knife fell to the floor, both of them bent down to pick it up, and she got it first.

"As I go to get up Gilly (Simon Gilchrist) seemed really close to me. He is trying to get the knife off me. I put my arms up in the air to stop him getting it and I go to push him away from me."

Her barrister, Rodney Jameson QC asked: "Were you aware of what you achieved by doing that?"

"I know that everything seemed to stop, go still. That is all I know," she said.

"Did you think about the knife in your right hand?" asked the barrister.

"No, it happened really quickly," she replied.

She denied wanting to harm Mr Gilchrist in any way.

The trial continues.

Updated: 14:48 Monday, January 17, 2005