A woman accused of killing her partner nearly a decade ago walked free from court this week.

Norma Violet Dawson hugged her lawyer as she left Magistrates? Court after the case against her was dropped on Tuesday.

She was charged with manslaughter last month ? nine years after Leslie Hutton was found stabbed at his Devonshire home in 1997.

Mrs. Dawson, 63, who strongly denied the allegation, declined to comment as she left court following a brief hearing.

Speaking through her lawyer, Mark Pettingill, she later said she was relieved it was all over.

He told : ?It has been an awful ordeal for her.

?She has been completely traumatised with this hanging over her head.?

He added: ?She swears to God that she has never done any harm to Mr. Hutton and that she?s completely innocent.?

Earlier, Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner told the court that the delay in charging Mrs. Dawson had been too long for her to receive a fair trial.

Throwing the case out and discharging the defendant, he said: ?There are no reasonable explanations acceptable as far as I?m concerned for the delays.

?Therefore, in the circumstances, I rule it would be an abuse of process for me to entertain this new information. I refuse to entertain this information.?

Mr. Hutton, 54, was found stabbed to death at his condominium home on Devon Springs Road, Devonshire, on April 22, 1997.

Police initially said there was no evidence of foul play in the case. Officers called to the father-of-five?s home found him with a single stab wound to the chest, reported at the time, sustained after a domestic dispute.

It is understood that Mrs. Dawson was questioned immediately after Mr. Hutton?s death, and was then arrested and questioned again in January, 1998.

She was released and heard nothing until 2005, when Police called out of the blue and in April this year they told her lawyer that they were going to press a manslaughter charge.

Prosecutors alleged that Mrs. Dawson stabbed her partner, a claim Mr. Pettingill said she denied ?vehemently?. She said he took his own life.

Mr. Pettingill, speaking after yesterday?s ruling, raised the prospect of a miscarriage of justice if the case against his client had gone any further.

He said this was the longest delay in charging a suspect ? who had not left the Island ? in his experience of Police investigations in Bermuda.

He made an application to have the case thrown out on the grounds of abuse of process, because of the time it took to charge Mrs. Dawson, of Devon Spring Road.

?The delay was not in any way caused by the defendant, but was down to the negligence on behalf of the authorities.

?Cases have to be brought as quickly as possible, especially serious cases. If you allow for too much time delay, memories fade and witnesses die. It becomes almost impossible for someone to receive a fair trial.?

He added: ?In this case it was clear as a pikestaff to us that this case should never get off the ground in terms of proceedings.

?I?m very, very pleased for her and our system that this has not been allowed to proceed.?

Calls to the Bermuda Police Service and the Department of Public Prosecutions asking why it took nine years to charge Mrs. Dawson were not returned.

However, understands delays to the investigation stemmed from a lost case file.

Calls to the DPP asking if they planned to appeal the decision were also not returned.