‘The other woman gave me herpes,’ claims barrister’s wife
A barrister’s wife told how her husband gave her herpes after he caught it from his mistress.
Katherine Simpson, 49, described the other woman as ‘a fucking chav’ but
insisted she felt ‘neutral’ her and was terrified of having any contact with his mistress.
Simpson and husband Jonathan, 48, are accused of harassing the woman after the affair ended.
Mr Simpson has said he was ‘like a crack addict’ who kept going back for more during his fling with the ingle mother.
Mrs Simpson told Southwark Crown Court: ‘I was terrified of any contact with this woman, I didn’t want any contact with this woman and I have never wanted any contact with this woman,’ she said.
‘I feel neutral in many respects about her status.
‘I didn’t want to hurt her, I have never hurt her.
‘I have never showed any revenge in this whole case.’
She claimed she was ‘absolutely devastated and petrified’ when her husband was arrested.
‘I am just a wife and a mother protecting my family and the thought that he was going to go to a police station and face arrest was unbelievably alarming for a stupid love affair.’
The property lawyer claimed that the harassment notice her husband received ‘made him look like some weird stalker’ which made her feel ‘really really angry’.
Mrs Simpson told jurors that a psychiatrist was ‘adamant’ that the restraining order be removed to help her husband and so she took to writing letters to people who knew the woman.
‘I knew I had to do something because I could see immediately after the restraining order was imposed that his health was beginning to decline.
‘My objective was to get these people to communicate with me so that I could go back to the police with evidence they had said that I had to get in order to prove that she had lied in her statement.
‘Then we might see an end to the restraining order and all the fears that went with it.
‘What I didn’t want was to have any contact with her.’
Mrs Simpson claimed to have marked the letters and made it clear that the woman was not to see them.
David Sapiecha, prosecuting, suggested Mrs Simpson intended for the woman to know about the letters and that she would find them intimidating.
‘I knew I was not allowed to have contact with her – I was not stupid,’ Mrs Simpson replied.
She admitted a number of comments made in the letters – including claims a private investigator had been hired – were untrue and simply ‘bluster’ or ‘fiction’
‘I knew it was a long shot, I knew it was probably unlikely but I didn’t know.
Mrs Simpson told the court she was trying to ‘provoke’ and ‘encourage them to communicate’ so that she could try to get the restraining order removed.
She blamed the woman’s new boyfriend for the situation she and her husband found herself in with the order.
‘I think [he] is behind it – I think without his influence she might have co-operated.
‘There were all the signs before that she was going to, I know that much earlier on she made it clear that she did not want Jonathan to be in this situation.
‘I think that he had manipulated her and forced her to come to court and be in this position.’
Mrs Simpson wrote a letter to the woman’s child’s school saying that her ‘looks can be deceptive’ and that she had ‘manipulated my husband’.
She also told the court that she believed she had got herpes as a result of her husband’s affair.
Mrs Simpson admitted she had had a drink by the time police came round to speak to her and her husband in a recorded interview.
During the conversation Mrs Simpson repeatedly called the woman a ‘bunny boiler’ and her partner a ‘thug’.
She also claimed to have been ‘trapped by a f**king chav’ and said it was ‘astonishing that I have not been round her house and kicked her front door down and smashed her face in’.
Mrs Simpson said: ‘I thought that police were helping us but it is quite clear now that they weren’t.
‘I was only ever going to use lawful means and I have always made that perfectly clear.’
The Simpsons, of Clifton Terrace, Winchester, both deny stalking.
The trial continues.
ends
