A woman who denied stabbing her son's friend with a steak knife after the two men started fighting has changed her plea to guilty half-way through her trial.

Lorraine Bustin, 43, was alleged to have stabbed 22-year-old Aaron Tasker in the hand, lip and stomach as he fought his childhood friend Gavin Bustin.

Oxford Crown Court heard that the assault happened when Mr Tasker went with his step-father, Kevin Neal, to Bustin's home in Cornwallis Road, Cowley, Oxford, on November 11 last year.

An argument had broken out earlier that evening when the two families were drinking together at Florence Park Community Club. Tasker told the court he had drunk about seven pints of Guinness before going home to bed. He said his family then received a number of abusive phone calls, so he got up and went to see the Bustins "to verbally sort things out".

After knocking on the door, he became involved in a fight which ended up in the kitchen where Lorraine Bustin stabbed him. Mr Tasker suffered a punctured bowel.

Bustin initially pleaded not guilty to charges of wounding with intent, and unlawful wounding. But after giving evidence in the witness box, she pleaded guilty to the unlawful wounding charge.

The guilty plea to one of the two charges was accepted by the prosecution and Judge David Morton Jack adjourned sentencing until July 10 for reports by the probation service.