A Bradford mother of two had a cocktail of drink and drugs before trying to kill her elderly next door neighbour in a "mercy killing", a Court heard.

Sharon Sadik, 39, put a bin liner over her face and used a kitchen knife to stab spinster Marjorie Binner, 78, while she lay in bed, a jury was told.

Sadik afterwards told police she had tried to kill Miss Binner as an act of mercy because her housebound neighbour was depressed, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Miss Binner, a former civil servant, suffered life threatening stab wounds to her stomach and shoulder in the attack.

Sadik, who lived next door to Miss Binner in Barmby Road, Undercliffe, but has since moved to another Bradford address, appeared in court charged with attempted murder or alternative charges of wounding with intent and aiding and abetting suicide. She denies all charges.

On the first day of the trial at Leeds Crown Court, the jury was told that 39-year-old Sadik looked after her housebound neighbour every day.

David Hatton QC, prosecuting, told the jury that Sadik had helped put Miss Binner to bed one night, but returned armed with a knife.

He said: "Miss Binner was laying in her bed, dozing, when she became conscious of a person on the bed astride her, brandishing a knife and with what appeared to be a plastic bag over the face. Miss Binner told the police she desperately tried to grab the knife of the attacker and sustained cuts to her hand, but her attacker succeeded in stabbing her."

He added: "Sharon Sadik had on that day, by her own admission, drank vodka and had taken Diazepam."

In a statement to the police, following her arrest after the stabbing in October last year, Sadik at first claimed it was a mercy killing.

Mr Hatton said: "She accepted that she had stabbed Miss Binner and that she had 'not done it right'."

Mr Hatton said Sadik claimed the pensioner, who suffered from depression, had asked her to "end it all for her".

Today Mr Hatton read statements to the jury from friends and home care assistants who looked after Miss Binner.

The statement from Miss Binner's GP, Dr Martin Spears, said although she had suffered from depression, mostly mild, she had never spoken of a wish to take her own life.

Ruth Turton a friend of Miss Binner for over 20 years said in her statement: "I never found her suicidal or expressing any tendencies towards suicide."

Care assistant Alison Howard, who works at the Bradford Moor Nursing Home where Miss Binner spent a month last summer, said in her statement: "At no time did she ever say anything to the effect that she was fed up of living or wanting to die."

The trial continues.

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