What would it take for you to break up with a partner? It depends on the context and the person in question. Shannon Barnard, a 21-year-old newlywed who hails from Leatherhead in Kent, England, has vowed to remain by her husband's side till death they do part - even though he has currently been given a lengthy prison sentence after he stabbed her 46 times in a drunken rage.
Of these, Shannon sustained 14 wounds to her torso, with four penetrating her internal organs, leaving her with a punctured lung. She spent 17 days in the hospital recovering from the incident.
The attack occurred on January 11 2018, two weeks after Shannon discovered that her new spouse had cheated on her with another woman while high on nitrous oxide. The couple had been arguing constantly, and Michael Barnard had shown signs of emotionally abusive and gaslighting behaviour. When Shannon fell asleep on the sofa, she awoke in the morning to find her husband brandishing a knife at her.
In a later interview with police investigators, Shannon described the attack: "I screamed and then somehow I was in the front room. After he stabbed me I dropped to the floor. His dad was still on the phone and I was screaming 'He’s got a knife'. I was on my back on the floor and Mike was literally on top of me and was just stabbing me. He was on his knees and leant over me."
She added: "I remember him trying to move my arms away and I was just screaming. He didn’t say anything apart from when I said 'Stop. I’ve got to call my dad'. He said 'No, you’ve got to die.' That was the only thing he said the whole time. He said it just once when I was on the floor. I was just thinking I was going to die, that I was dead."
At Maidstone Crown Court, Judge Philip Statman told Barnard: 'Your wife was extraordinarily lucky to have survived this ordeal. The reason why she did so was down to the very quick medical response together with the extraordinary skill of the surgeons who undoubtedly in my judgment saved her life. This was a relentless and horrifying assault upon her. It was ferocious, and looking at the photographs of her body and indeed of the scene, one can see the amount of blood that she lost, and significantly the scars that will accompany her throughout her life."
He added: "Each day when your victim gets up in the morning and looks down at her body she can see, and will do for the rest of her life that which you did to her. I am completely satisfied that to set about your wife in the way which you did in the matrimonial home constitutes the gravest breach of trust that one could possibly imagine. This is a very serious case of attempted murder."
However, despite all this Shannon has reiterated that she remains committed to her husband, and is even planning on starting a family with him after he is released from prison. She has even taken to social media to defend Michael from criticism, writing in a Facebook post: "My husband is MICHAEL BARNARD and if anyone wants to put anything on here about him unfriend me! Or if u talk to or have anything to do with them dossers then unfriend me! [sic]"
She later added: "I’ve said it before but I don’t think I’ve quite made myself clear enough whoever has anything to do with the mongrels who caused my husband to have a mental breakdown DO NOT TALK TO ME! I have nothing in common with people who associate or comment on there Facebook! unfriend me. [sic]"
Michael Barnard has since been diagnosed with a short-lived adjustment disorder at the time of the incident and has been placed on antipsychotic medication.
