The man accused of murdering Mount Hawke mother Michaela Hall has admitted stabbing her in the eye but claims it was an accident after an argument about a sweet and sour dinner.

Lee Kendall, 43, is on trial at Truro Crown Court charged with the murder of 49-year-old Ms Hall at her home in Charlotte Close, Mount Hawke home on May 31 last year, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Taking the stand, Kendall told his defence barrister Richard Smith QC, that on the night Michaela died, he had drunk four to five bottles of wine by about 10pm. He also claimed that Michaela had drunk a bottle of wine although a toxicologist report found a low amount of alcohol in her blood stream.

Kendall said he was "surprised" by that as he claimed that she had been drinking and was drunk.

At 6.30pm, said Mr Smith, Kendall's mother said she spoke to Michaela on the phone and could hear her screaming at someone she assumed to be her son.

Kendall said on that evening he and Michaela had been arguing over the sweet and sour food that Michaela had prepared for both of them. Kendall said she got upset with him when he told her he didn't want to eat it.

"I wasn't ready to eat it yet and I said I'd put it in the microwave," he said. "She wanted me to eat with her. I put it on the floor."

He said Michaela became angry with him and he picked it up off the floor and put it in the bin so she wouldn't step in it.

When interviewed by the police after her death, he told them Michaela had a small black handled knife in her hand which he took off her.

"She was angry, with it in her hand," Kendall told the jury. "I took it off her so nothing could happen. She was pointing it towards me and she was angry."

He said they continued to argue and Michaela left and went into the small bedroom in the house, he said he didn't follow her immediately but could hear she was talking to somebody on the phone.

It later transpired that the person on the other end of the phone was her friend Clair Basnett who now lives in Gran Canaria.

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Kendall claimed he felt hurt and angry about the call because it sounded like she was: "slagging me off".

He said he went into the room where Michaela was laid across the bottom bunk bed and forcefully took the phone and threw it across the room. He said: "I grabbed her around the throat as she was kicking me and I took the phone."

He said she went to get up and he still had a hold of her and she took hold of a cutlery knife that was in the room which, he said, he had been using as a screwdriver for some DIY.

"We were both being horrible to each other," said Kendall. "Telling her to: 'F**k off. Leave me alone. What's wrong with you?'. She was being the same towards me. She was screaming at me. She thrust the knife into my chest once."

He said he took the knife off her by grabbing hold of the blade with his left hand while she held onto him.

"As we were struggling my hand is jerked away from her at the same time she is coming towards me and it ended up going in her eye."

He claimed that after it had gone her eye, Michaela was still standing in front of him and he removed the knife and asked if she was OK. He said she said she was but asked for a drink of water which he got her. When he returned she was sitting on the bed and then lay on the floor. He got her onto the bed and covered her and put a pillow under her head. He then went out and carried on drinking. Asked by Mr Mr Smith Green why he didn't call the ambulance he said it was because he thought she'd "be fine"

Following the stabbing Kendall said he threw the knife in a sink and later took it out, dried it and put it back in the cutlery drawer "with the rest of them".

The trial continues.