'Hopeless alcoholic' jailed for stabbing drunk partner

Hamilton woman Christine Goodin has been jailed after a drinking binge ended in an assault. Photo / File

A Hamilton woman who stabbed her partner in the neck and head after a drinking bender has been jailed for nearly five years.

The couple were dubbed ''hopeless alcoholics'' by Judge Glen Marshall in the Hamilton District Court today.

Christine Marion Goodin walked up to her partner of several years as he lay on the couch and stabbed him in the neck in August, 2015.

Goodin, 53, fought a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and assault using a knife as a weapon but was found guilty at trial in January.

The victim suffered life-threatening injuries, including a collapsed lung but Crown prosecutor Jess Tarrant said he had since made a full recovery.

Tarrant accepted Goodin's actions were not premeditated, rather were impulsive, and said the pair were chronic alcoholics.

Goodin's lawyer James Buckle was frustrated his client couldn't use the victim's previous offending against her as mitigation.

He told the judge he would have liked to have used provocation as a defence, but there had been an "absence of information".

Because the pair were so drunk, it wasn't clear where the stabbing took place as there was also blood in the bathroom.

"He was stabbed somewhere in the house under circumstances we know not of."

As for the pair's alcoholism, they were victims of their own making, he said.

"The two of them are in the more classic sense, pathetic. They're the victims of their own disease.

"Given the victim's personal previous convictions, he could have been standing there rather than Goodin for the exact same reason."

Judge Marshall said the couple met a rehabilitation facility, but they had obviously failed and were now "both hopeless alcoholics".

On the day of the stabbing, the pair had been drinking for "an extended period of time, if not a couple of days", and although it's unclear exactly what happened, the victim ended up suffering the stab wounds.

"He could have easily died if he didn't receive medical attention."

After the stabbing, Goodin fell asleep on the couch and when police arrived they had trouble waking her.

In deciding on her prison term, the judge noted the victim's comment that the stabbing "has turned his life completely around".

"He says sobriety is the best thing that has ever happened to him," Judge Marshall said.

A remorseful Goodin was jailed for four years and 11 months.