Teacher Stabbed Woman 15 Times When She Rejected Him. What He Told Police Afterward Was Haunting as Well

• Emma Kirk, 25, and Matthew Jones, 29, started off as friends in college and the relationship became romantic
• In 2024, Kirk told Jones she just wanted to be friends but he didn’t take the news well and started showing up at the school where she worked and kept messaging her, police said
• In Feb. 2024, when he told her to meet him to return gifts he gave her, he attacked her, stabbing her 15 times until five men intervened and pulled him off of her

A British man who admitted to stabbing his ex-girlfriend 15 times in a “mercilessly ferocious” attack when she told him she wanted to be friends has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

On Feb. 26, 2024, during a “frenzied” attack in a country lane in Bath, England, that almost killed Emma Kirk, 25, five men had to pull Matthew Jones, 29, off of her, the BBC reports.

During his sentencing on Friday, May 9, Judge Julian Lambert told him, “There was nothing in your past that could have predicted what happened next, which was a knife attack perpetrated with a ferocious determination to injure seriously, rarely seen before in the long experience of the court,” according to a statement from the Avon and Somerset police.

Calling it a “brutal and frenzied attack,” the judge said, “You were described as ‘a man possessed.’

“Spirited citizens,” he said, “disarmed and detained you as you were still wielding a knife, doing all you could to attack the victim, even when restrained by five others.”

Kirk, a secondary school teacher, and Jones, also a teacher, told the jury they met in college in 2022, the BBC reports.

Over the next 18 months she said they became “really good friends” and then “romantically involved” when they were intimate on one or two occasions, according to the BBC.

In 2024, Kirk ended the relationship, telling him that “they wouldn’t be anything more than friends,” police said.

He didn’t take the news well, police said. Jones started showing up to the school where Kirk worked and kept messaging her after she ended the relationship, the BBC reports.

On the day of the attack, Jones “insisted” on meeting her on a quiet lane so she could return gifts he had bought her, police said.

During the exchange, Jones attacked her, repeatedly stabbing her and leaving her with multiple stab wounds and cuts to her neck, face, head, abdomen and hands, police said. 

“Surgeons told her family the knife had been millimeters from a key artery and it was ‘a miracle’ she survived,” police said in the statement.

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After officers arrived and handcuffed Jones, he was seen on surveillance video telling a police officer, “Don’t show me respect. I’m a monster. I don’t deserve it.”

In his initial interview, Jones handed officers a prepared statement in which he denied deliberately stabbing Emma, saying he was acting in self-defense, police said in the statement.

In April, Jones, of Bath, was acquitted of attempted murder, the BBC reports. 

He pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent “accepting that he did deliberately stab her, not in self-defense, but intending to cause her serious harm,” police said. “He continued to deny any intention to kill.”

In a personal statement in court, Kirk recounted the horrific attack, saying she thought she was going to die, police said.

“I had to move back home with my parents so they could provide me with the physical and psychological support I needed,” she said, adding that she felt “too scared to leave my parents’ home for months.”

The physical and emotional pain she has endured “has left a lasting impact on my life,” she said.

In his statement to the court, her father said, “Words cannot express how incredibly grateful I am to those brave members of the public who intervened to save Emma’s life that day. I will never be able to thank them enough for their bravery.”

He added that the “after-effects of this attack will probably never completely go away. The main positive of course is that Emma is still with us.”

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.