A MISTRESS who was allegedly stabbed 17 times by an outraged wife told a jury yesterday that she sees her former lover more often now than she did before the attack.

Julie Simpson, a former BBC producer, told Cambridge Crown Court that she still loved John Foster and had been able to see him two or three times a week since his wife was charged with her attempted murder.

Before the stabbing, in which she lost her right eye and suffered a collapsed lung after being attacked in her Cambridge University room, the pair had been far more restricted in their meetings.

Alethea Foster, a retired clinical podiatrist, is accused of stabbing Ms Simpson in a jealous rage after setting up a meeting at Warburton Hall, part of Lucy Cavendish College, on October 3. She denies attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

The court was told that during the meeting Mrs Foster took a kitchen knife from her handbag and rained down blows on Ms Simpson, who was studying for a degree at the university.

A student living in the same hall of residence as Ms Simpson described to the court how she helped raised the alarm after hearing screams and seeing her “covered in blood”.

Ms Simpson had staggered out of her room into the corridor, where Nina Rzechorzek saw her slumped on the floor with her attacker, who had grabbed the injured woman’s hair and was jabbing the knife towards her head.

Ms Rzechorzek said of Mrs Foster: “She had a knife. I saw thrusting movements towards Julie’s head, poking and thrusting repeatedly. It was like a cat playing with a mouse.”

Mrs Foster, the court was told, took pleasure in the attack and afterwards stood by watching her rival bleed, waiting for her to die.

Six months earlier she had discovered a series of e-mails between her husband and Ms Simpson on his computer.

Mr Foster, who is said to have stopped having sex with his wife because he claimed impotence, denied a sexual liaison with Ms Simpson but in September another “incriminating” e-mail was found.

In court yesterday Ms Simpson, who began an affair with Mr Foster in 1989 when they worked together at the BBC, told the jury: “I love John. I’ve seen him more in the past six months than I ever did in the past sixteen years. I see him two or three times a week. He helped me when I went back home after the stabbing.”

She maintained, however, that she had not had sex with him in the past three or four years: “We were lovers. We are now friends.”

Ms Simpson, of Beckenham, Kent, said: “I was struck by the absurdity at us discussing a man with whom neither of us were having sex. It’s annoying to be stabbed by someone whose husband you are having sex with. It’s doubly annoying to be stabbed by someone for not having sex with her husband. We were not lovers by the time she attacked me.”

Under cross examination by Rock Tansey, QC, for the defence, Ms Simpson accepted that she knew from the beginning of the affair that Mrs Foster would be “devastated” if she ever found out.

Ms Simpson said that in the meeting in the college room Mrs Foster compared the love triangle to that involving Diana, Princess of Wales, by saying “there are three in this marriage”. Ms Simpson said: “From my point of view that was a gross over-statement.

“I would never have asked John to leave his wife. I can’t imagine wilfully or deliberately harming another human being, much less enjoying it. I didn’t want anyone to be unhappy.

“I never thought that his wife would find out because the relationship wouldn’t last. If anyone was going to be hurt it was me. I’m not the only woman in the world to fall in love with a married man. I’m probably not the only one in this courtroom.”

She agreed that she had smiled once during the fateful meeting with Mrs Foster. However, she denied Mr Tansey’s suggestion that she laughed in her rival’s face when she heard that Mr Foster had told his wife that he couldn’t have sex because he was impotent.

She also agreed that while being Mr Foster’s mistress she had become friendly with Mrs Foster, who took her to a Rolling Stones concert and helped her to set up home with a gift of a carpet when she moved out of a flat. She also joined a couple of Foster family holidays. The case continues.

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