He packed the knife before he left the house.
A kitchen knife, 30cm from tip to handle, into a rucksack. Then he went looking for her.
He was still looking eight hours later.
A jury at Swansea Crown Court has found James John McKenna, 57, of Bro Hedydd, Carmarthen, guilty of the attempted murder of his former partner Joanne Sidaway.
McKenna had already admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent and carrying a bladed article in public. He accepted taking the knife. He accepted stabbing her. He accepted he meant to cause her really serious harm.
What he denied was meaning to kill her. That one question, his intent, was the entire trial.
The morning walk where nothing happened
He left home at 8.30am on 29 January and entered the park by the Tesco entrance nine minutes later.
CCTV showed him circling the velodrome, heading off towards the allotments, coming back. At one point the cameras caught something shiny sticking out of his rucksack. The prosecution said that was the point of the knife.
Miss Sidaway was in the park at the same time, walking her dog. An animation shown to the jury traced both their routes. They never met.
Asked by Judge Paul Thomas KC why he had gone there, McKenna answered: “I was looking for her, your honour.”
He said nothing happened that morning because other people were around.
A museum, a coffee bar and a charity shop shift
He left the park shortly after nine and took a taxi.
He went out to the museum at Abergwili, because he thought she might be there.
Back in town by 11.13am, he went into the Time Coffee Bar on Lamas Street, close to a shop where Miss Sidaway volunteered.
From the coffee bar he rang the Cancer Research UK shop to say he would be late. It was his own first day as a volunteer there. He worked the shift in Merlin’s Walk from 12.10pm until 2.10pm.
Then Tesco at 2.36pm, where he bought food and put it in the rucksack with the knife.
At 3.02pm he walked back into Carmarthen Park through the skatepark entrance.
The prosecution told the jury those movements showed a man who had spent his day looking for her.
“Sue, I have been stabbed”
Just after 4pm, Susan Edwards was in the park when she heard very high-pitched screams from bushes near the Picton Terrace entrance.
She saw her friend’s dog standing up on its hind legs.
Then she saw a man jump out of the bushes and run past her.
Behind him, in the bushes against a wall, was her neighbour. Miss Sidaway told her: “Sue, I have been stabbed.”
Mrs Edwards took her home and tended to her wounds. Her partner rang 999. So did Miss Sidaway.
“I have been stabbed, I have been stabbed, I have just been stabbed by my ex-partner,” she told the operator. “Please, please bring an ambulance. His name is James John McKenna, he has been stalking me.”
She later told an officer the attack came within moments of her walking into the park, and was so fast she never got to blow the whistle she wore around her neck.
Paramedics reached her at 4.16pm and found her sitting on steps, covered in blood.
She had four penetrating wounds to the left side of her chest, above and below the breast, more to her upper arm, and defensive wounds to her hands. Her clothes carried 11 cuts from stabbing and two from slashes.
Three days in the woods, then frostbite
Cameras caught McKenna running towards the allotments carrying something.
Two days later police found it there. A rucksack, and a blood-stained kitchen knife wrapped in a calendar. Her DNA was on the blade. His fingerprints were on the handle.
By then his name and photograph were public and officers were searching the town and its transport links.
He spent three days in woodland outside Carmarthen with no food and no water.
He was arrested on 2 February at the A&E department in Aberystwyth, where he had gone for treatment for frostbite in his feet.
In interview he gave officers a prepared statement. He accepted the knife. He accepted the injuries. He denied trying to kill her.
He appeared in court two days later.
The coat, the screams and “profound good luck”
The couple met online through a photography group in 2022 and were together from September 2024. McKenna told the court the relationship ended a year later.
Prosecutor James Wilson set out for the jury why the Crown said he intended to kill.
That he packed the knife that morning. That its size made it a lethal weapon. That he had no reason to be in that park, living on the other side of Carmarthen. The number of wounds. The damage to her clothing.
“It was not an isolated blow,” he said. “There were multiple blows to the chest area, a vulnerable part of the body.”
As to why Miss Sidaway survived, he gave the jury a list of possibilities. Her heavy winter coat. The way she fought back. Her screams, which may have made him stop.
“Or it may be, simply, her profound good luck that she did not die.”
McKenna was represented by Caroline Rees KC. The jury rejected his account of his intent.
He will be sentenced at a later date.
If you are experiencing domestic abuse or stalking, the Live Fear Free helpline is open 24 hours a day on 0808 80 10 800.
