A Kingston woman who admitted to stabbing to death her physically abusive common-law husband was Tuesday acquitted of a charge of manslaughter in the Home Circuit Court.

A jury of five women and two men took just 20 minutes to acquit Camille Wellesley after hearing the accused testify about her life of abuse at the hands of the man she loved.

Wellesley testified in her two-day trial, which started on Monday, that her partner Mario Martel, 20, constantly abused her and that the morning of the killing, February 29, 2004, was no different.

The Cassava Piece, Kingston 8 resident said that on the date in question she returned home from a ‘nine-night’ and was greeted by a fist to the face from Martel, who was upset that she went to the wake.

The short, stocky woman testified that Martel then locked the door to the family house and started beating her before his father Roy came from his room and intervened.

When this attempt at restoring peace failed, Wellesley said she ran to a relative’s room and was chased by Martel, who picked up a bread knife and attacked her – after the relative, in whose room they were, was unable to calm the attacker.

Wellesley, who had also picked up a knife, said she stabbed Martel once and jumped through a window after he rushed her with his knife.

“When you look at the evidence,” defence Christopher Townsend told jurors, “the woman was clearly being beaten.

The investigating officer said he saw swelling and bruises on her face. When my mother used to beat me the first thing she would do was lock the door because she know that the first chance I got I would bolt.”

Townsend, who had the jurors smiling with his comment of being beaten by his mother, said that his client should be found not guilty as she was only defending herself against a raving man with a knife.

The prosecution contended that Martel never attacked Wellesley with a knife, and that he was standing in a passage when she attacked and stabbed him.