A waitress accused of stabbing her flatmate to dea

A waitress accused of stabbing her flatmate to death told the Old Bailey how she was forced to defend herself after a violent late night row over money.

Myrian Conte, 22, said she was forced to grab a knife and defend herself from Massamiliano Ristagno after he attacked her in his bedroom.

It is claimed Conte repeatedly knifed Mr Ristagno after he discovered she had stolen more than pnds stlng 1,000 from his account.

But giving evidence Conte maintained that Mr Ristagno had given her permission to withdraw money to repay her for rent and household bills.

She admitted they had argued frequently over bills at the house they shared in Dowsett Road, Tottenham.

Conte said he had been made redundant from his barjob and spent the day using her telephone without permission to make international calls to Italy and the States.

Matters reached a head when she discovered Mr Ristagno had written a letter to his bank claiming that his cashcard had been stolen.

The court was told Conte returned home from work and decided to confront him about the situation.

Mr Ristagno invited her into his bedroom to talk about the problem but the conversation became heated.

Conte told the court: ‘He said that I was already in a lot of trouble and the police had been called.

‘

She said she had decided to ask him to leave the house they rented with her younger sister.

But the situation flared up as she stood up to leave his room.

Conte said: ‘He was still speaking to me, saying to me: ‘You can’t do this, I am not leaving, I am not leaving this house.

‘

‘So I decided to leave.

Then as I was walking towards the door, he was walking backwards speaking to me, and he pushed himself against the door.

‘I told him to move.

He didn’t say anything.

‘I was trying to get out and then the big light went out.

‘

Conte said in the darkness she asked him to turn the light back on.

But she claimed Mr Ristagno pushed her away from the door, and she fell onto the floor.

She managed to fumble her way to the bed, but Mr Ristagno had pinned her down by the shoulders and began to shake her.

‘I knew he wanted to hurt me seriously.

‘I was desperate to grab something to push him away with, to get out of the room.

‘

Conte claimed she fought back in the desperate struggle.

As she reached around in the darkness she said she managed to grab a knife that Mr Ristagno kept in his bedroom to crack nuts with.

She said that she became scared as Mr Ristagno tried to grab the knife from her.

‘I must have hit him with the knife.

‘I heard him screaming and shouting.

I felt the knife had made contact with him.

‘

‘I realised he was focusing more on his injury that I had inflicted on him rather than attacking me.

‘

Conte left the room, but fearing that Mr Ristagno might go upstairs to where her sister was sleeping she decided to try and push him out of the house.

‘I had no idea how injured he was.

I wanted him to get out of the room.

I told him to get out.

‘

Conte, of Dowsett Road, denies murdering Mr Ristagno on May 11 this year.

ends