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Police Scotland<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nA court has heard how a man stabbed his partner 27 times during a fatal attack at their home in Chirnside in the Borders.<\/p>\n Corey Dryden, 31, admitted murdering Megan Hughes at the property on the town’s Windram Road in February this year.<\/p>\n The High Court in Edinburgh was told police arrested him soon after the assault and took him into custody.<\/p>\n Dryden had told police officers he could not remember what he had done.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The court also heard how he started weeping during the police interview.<\/p>\n Prosecutor Tracey Brown said he told detectives: “I did really love her you know.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ms Brown told the court that officers had Dryden assessed by mental health professionals while he was in detention.<\/p>\n During that assessment he was asked how he would manage if he was released but had replied that was unlikely as he had “hacked” his girlfriend to death.<\/p>\n Dryden pleaded guilty to murdering 31-year-old Ms Hughes by repeatedly striking her on the head and body with a knife.<\/p>\n The charge also contained details of how he repeatedly struck his partner on the head and body with a hammer “or a similar object” during the attack.<\/p>\n The court heard the pair had known each other since childhood but had started living together in July last year.<\/p>\n Ms Hughes had two children from a previous relationship.<\/p>\n The court was told that on the day before Dryden murdered his partner, he sent text messages to friends and loved ones.<\/p>\n Ms Brown said that these messages showed that he was “struggling to manage his emotions within the context of the relationship”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n She said that at about 02:15 on 9 February a neighbour had been woken by loud banging from the couple’s home and heard Ms Hughes repeatedly shout: “Please help me.”<\/p>\n Things quietened down but Dryden phoned police at about 04:30 claiming his partner had stabbed herself after attacking him with a hammer.<\/p>\n Officers who responded found Ms Hughes lying on the floor of an upstairs bedroom with a kitchen knife in her right hand.<\/p>\n The court heard how officers started doing CPR but paramedics later pronounced her dead.<\/p>\n Pathologists carried out a post-mortem on Ms Hughes’s body the day after the fatal attack and the cause of death was recorded as stab wounds to the chest and neck.<\/p>\n Defence advocate Lili Prais KC said she would reserve her mitigation until after the court had obtained a report on her client’s background.<\/p>\n Lord Harrower deferred sentence until 24 July for a background report and remanded Dryden in custody.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Det Ch Insp Laura White said: “This was a vicious and calculated attack by Dryden that tragically resulted in Megan’s death.<\/p>\n “His actions have robbed a family of their mum, daughter, granddaughter, sister and niece.<\/p>\n “Our thoughts very much remain with Megan’s family and friends as they come to terms with what happened to her.<\/p>\n “I sincerely hope that today’s conviction brings them some sense of justice that Dryden will now face the full consequences of his actions.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/bbcdotcom\/web\/20250616-143050-043f96f72f-web-2.23.1-5\/grey-placeholder.png\")
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Police Scotland<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/285d\/live\/ffadee00-e893-11ef-8d48-edb38b4e0413.jpg.webp\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n‘Sense of justice’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n