Charlotte Lawlor died last September

A JURY has been told they must decide whether the woman who fatally stabbed a mother from Islington was suffering from a “loss of control”.

Hope Rowe, 33, stands accused of murdering Charlotte Lawlor, 31, at her 15-year-old nephew’s birthday party last September.

She is on trial at Inner London Crown Court where she has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and entered partial defences of loss of control and diminished responsibility.

The court heard how the two women had been attending the birthday party but the prosecution and defence’s arguments differ as to how tensions became inflamed between the pair. The defence argues that Ms Rowe left the property in Mile End at around 11pm after “something so unpleasant and so frightening came to pass”. They say she feared for her life when she left in a rush, taking with her the birthday cake knife, and two children, one without his shoes on.

Defence barrister Clea Topolski KC told the jury Ms Rowe only returned to the premises because she believed she had left her house keys there.

Ms Topolski said: “She wanted to get as much distance between [herself and] that serious threat as quickly as possible… but for those house keys, she would never have come back.”

However, the prosecution say that it was Ms Rowe who incited violence and threatened to kill Ms Lawlor.

Prosecuting barrister Charlotte Newell KC said: “Hope Rowe was planning on attacking her. She left with the knife saying that she would return, and she did return”.

The jury was told by Judge Freya Newbery that it must decide between evidence from two experts as to the extent to which Ms Rowe’s personality disorder influenced her actions.

Ms Topolski KC argued that Ms Rowe’s diagnosed personality disorder, which had affected her day-to-day life for a number of years, “would have made it much harder to regulate her emotions, to exercise self-control or rational judgement”.

The defence barrister added that a history “filled with abuse, with fear, and violence, and blood” meant that Ms Rowe “lost control” when she saw Ms Lawlor exiting the block of flats, and believed that she was intending to cause her harm.

But Ms Newell KC said: “Whilst her personality disorder may well mean that she loses her temper more easily than others … it does not mean that any reasonable person would stab somebody in the same circumstances. Plenty of people have a personality disorder, they don’t go around hurting or killing people.”

She added that any hardships suffered by Ms Rowe “are not a get out of jail free card”.

Ms Newell KC told the jury that Ms Rowe had not shown “one single shred of remorse” and said her evidence that she feared for herself or her teenage son were “lies to justify killing Charlotte Lawlor and to create a defence”.

Ms Rowe’s partner Leigh Holder is charged with perverting the course of justice. He is accused of driving Ms Rowe away from the scene and helping her dispose of the knife.

The court heard how in the aftermath of the stabbing, in a voicemail between the pair, Mr Holder said “You absolute idiot, you killed her, you f**king killed her, you idiot”, to which Ms Rowe replied “good”.

The trial continues.