The man charged with murdering his ex-partner by stabbing her 60 times with a pair of scissors asked police if he could get a reduced jail term for pleading guilty, a court heard yesterday.

Laszlo Nandor Marton, 57, from Hungary, posed the question as he was being interrogated over the killing of 38-year-old Yvette Gajda on November 27 last year in an apartment they shared.

He told the police that during an argument they had shortly before her death, Ms Gajda said she had had enough of him and grabbed a pair of scissors from a table near their computer, Police Sergeant Alistair Xuereb said.

She then started to hit him with it, according to Mr Marton.

She managed to stab him once in the chest before he wrested the scissors out of her hand and after that all he could remember was seeing blood and stabbing himself.

The officer said the reply to his jail term question was that the decision rested with the judge and not the police.

PS Xuereb said he was one of the first officers on the scene, Flat 3 of St Paul’s Court in Ephesus Street, St Paul’s Bay.

A colleague told him to accompany the ambulance to the flat because the couple were lying in a pool of blood.

On his return to the flat he was told to take photos of the crime scene with a mobile phone before the ambulance crew moved the couple, who were face down next to each other in the corridor both unconscious.

He recalled noticing Mr Marton’s arm around the victim.

Emergency doctor Mary Rose Cassar told the court she examined the accused but he refused to give his name or say a word.

He had nine stab wounds to the left side of his chest and a CT scan established that internal bleeding was also an issue, she said.

The case continues.