A man who is standing trial for the attempted murder of his wife yesterday told jurors that he loved his wife and still loves her and they still live together, looking after their two young children.

Paul Caruana, 34, from Zejtun is being charged with trying to murder his wife Sandra on 12 June 2003. He is also being charged with being in possession of a sharp and pointed instrument without a licence and being in possession of a weapon during the commission of a crime.

Testifying yesterday during his trial, Mr Caruana explained that at the time of the incident he was having matrimonial problems because his wife was losing interest in their marriage and was practically abandoning their two daughters. He said he was also strongly suspecting that his wife was seeing another man.

Mr Caruana said he married his wife nine years prior to the incident and that his marriage was a happy one until they started having problems because his wife began to abandon their children, leaving them alone at home for long stretches. He said she did not feed them, the house was filthy and the children were dirty because she did not give them baths.

“I looked after the children as much as I could and I cleaned the house and cooked too. Sometimes, the children used to phone me at work to tell me that they are alone. I usually took them to work and sometimes to my mother. There were occasions when I woke up in the middle of the night and I didn’t find her next to me. I passed through a bad time because of this and I used to find it very difficult to eat and live a normal life,” he said.

Mr Caruana said his wife constantly told him that he was crazy and even disconnected the telephone at home. “The children usually ran around in the streets, sometimes just in their underwear until neighbours phoned me at work to tell me about them. The older daughter usually ended up giving her sister a bath because they were always dirty,” he explained.

The witness continued that he had been suspecting that she was seeing another man for around eight months before the incident.

He explained that at some point, his wife began receiving messages on her mobile, sometimes in the middle of the night. “I suspected that she was seeing another man. Whenever I confronted her about it, she always told me that I’m crazy. She lied about the messages, even saying that they were from her nephew or her sisters, which was not true. I trusted her a lot and then I stopped trusting her because I could sense that something was wrong,” he said.

“Two days before the stabbing incident, Sandra received a message which she said she had received from her sister. After we took the children to school, while I was driving, she spat at me and started hitting me. I hit her back, parked at the side of the road and she got out of the car and got a lift with someone. I went back to the garage and after some time, the police called me and told me to go to the police station,” he said.

The following day, he said, there was the Zejtun feast. He said he received a call from his wife’s niece who told him to take the children to the police station because his wife Sandra, her sister Carmen and their brother Mario were going to look for him to beat him up.

“I left home with my brother Chris, we looked for the children and all of a sudden I heard a lot of shouting and I saw them coming towards me. They were threatening to kill me but I sat down on the pavement and I remained calm. My brother was telling them to leave me alone,” he said.

He said the following morning, while he was at his garage, his nephew Charlot Azzopardi called him and told him that there was someone who wanted to speak to him. He said he went down and saw his wife’s sister Carmen. He said he went outside and tried speaking to his wife but they did not manage to communicate much.

“I was sitting on the backseat and my wife came next to me and Carmen sat in the passenger seat. I cried and asked her why she was doing this to me but she continued to tell me that I’m crazy. Carmen told me they wanted to take the children and the keys of the house and I told them to leave me and the children alone. They said they were not going to let me leave the car unless I let them take the children,” he said.

“I remembered I had the knife in my back pocket and I used it to scare them to let me out. On my way out of the car, I hit my wife with it. I noticed that I hit her with the knife. I ran off but I did not know what I was doing at that point. Then my sister came and I was taken to some place which I later found out was Mount Carmel Hospital. I spent between six and seven weeks there and then I was charged in court with my wife’s attempted murder,” he said.

Under cross-examination, Mr Caruana said he loved his wife Sandra and wanted her to come back home to start afresh. He said nowadays, he is living with his wife again, looking after their family but added that their children are still under the trauma of what they went through.

When asked, Mr Caruana said he still did not remember what he had done with the small knife which, he said, he usually used to open the sacks of fodder for the pigeons. “I got out the knife to scare them so they would let me get out of the car,” he said.

Later during yesterday’s sitting, the defence started addressing the jurors. Lawyer Emanuel Mallia said the case was not one of attempted murder but insisted that Sandra Caruana was hit involuntarily and that Mr Caruana did not have the intention to kill his wife. Intention, he explained, is one of the elements which are needed to prove attempted murder.

“If anything, Mr Caruana should be found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm but you also have to take into consideration Mr Caruana’s mental state and the psychological problems he was going through at the time,” Dr Mallia said.

The case continues today.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono is presiding over the case.

Senior counsel to the Republic Mark Said prosecuted while Dr Emmanuel Mallia and Dr Giannella Caruana Curran appeared for the defence.