# The Case of Zoe Adams: When “Kinkier” Becomes Criminal

- Link: https://thedarksideofhumanity.com/when-kinkier-becomes-criminal-the-case-of-zoe-adams/
- Published: 2025-05-31T03:54:12-04:00
- Author: Mandi Martyr

St Mary's parish church, High Street, Wigton, Cumbria, 2006. Adams attacked Kieran Bewick at her home in Wigton on July 29, 2017. Credit: Humphrey Bolton / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). On the night of Saturday, July 29, 2017, in a bedroom at her home on Brindlefield in Wigton, Cumbria, Zoe Adams told Kieran Bewick to put a pillow over his face. “Trust me,” she said. Then she stabbed him five times with a kitchen knife with a 10-inch blade. Bewick, 17, a friend and occasional lover who was staying with her, survived with a punctured lung. Adams admitted wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. On May 2, 2018, at Carlisle Crown Court, Judge James Adkin found her a dangerous offender and imposed an extended sentence: 11 and a half years in custody plus four years on extended licence. In September 2018 the Court of Appeal cut that to nine years in custody plus three years on licence. In August 2024 the Parole Board refused to release her. The Two of Them Adams was a mother of one, 19 by the time of sentencing. Bewick was a teenage writer who had published a dark fantasy novel, Ascendence, in 2017, according to the Daily Mail and the Mirror. Adams told the court they were friends who shared an interest in writing, and that she let him stay with her when he left home. Police described their relationship as “on-off.” Adams said they had sex about a month before the stabbing, that she regretted it, and that she had told him it would not happen again. Both were members of a Facebook group called Murder Files for Curious [People], the court heard. Bewick told police Adams spent mornings watching “gruesome murder videos.” In June 2017, Adams sent him a message the prosecution later read aloud: “I don’t think about males unless said male is strapped up and being used as a human sacrifice. You should be grateful you are not part of it.” She told the court it was a joke. Bewick had told her, in a text, that a barefoot clown was his worst nightmare. The Clown Earlier on the evening of the attack, Adams put on clown make-up and confronted Bewick, the court heard. She admitted doing it and asking whether it scared him. “It was a joke,” she said. Her barrister, Dan Travers, said she had told a probation officer it was meant to make him laugh: “It was just a bit of fun, not to genuinely frighten him.” Bewick asked her to take it off, and she did, according to a later Parole Board document quoted by the Mirror. She had been drinking vodka and smoking cannabis. He had been drinking. The Attack A residential street in Wigton, Cumbria, 2014. Neighbourhood context only; not the house. Credit: Christine Johnstone / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Bewick’s account, given to police within hours of the attack and read in court, was reported by the Mirror. They were in bed. She went downstairs and came back “30 seconds later with a condom and duct tape.” She asked again whether she could tie him to the bed. He said no. “Then she said ‘put the pillow over your face then, it is kinkier that way’.” He agreed. She traced her finger on his chest and asked whether he really loved her and really wanted her. He said yes. “She said ‘put the pillow back on your face, trust me’. That’s when she stabbed me.” “I did not feel the pain from the stab wounds but I felt the bleeding,” he said. “I felt my lung pop and squirt blood.” He pulled the pillow away and saw her holding a black-handled knife in her right hand. “She was leaning over my body, she was not looking at my face, she was looking at my chest.” She stabbed him twice in the chest and cut his arm, leg and hand. He fled the house and got help from a neighbour, BBC News reported. He suffered a collapsed lung, then pneumonia and an infection that affected his breathing. The Court of Appeal heard he spent 10 days in hospital. Judge Adkin called the injuries life-threatening. Her Account Adams was first charged with attempted murder. She later admitted wounding with intent, which removed the need for a jury, but disputed Bewick’s version, so the judge held a three-day hearing to decide the facts for sentencing. In evidence she said they had cuddled in bed. “He started to kiss my neck. I told him to pack it in, or words to that effect.” He touched her shoulder and she panicked. Her next memory, she said, was “not being on the bed any more; and him asking me what had I done.” She said she did not remember holding or using the knife, or putting it in the kitchen sink afterward. Cross-examined by prosecutor Robert Wyn Jones, she said: “I don’t remember holding the knife, or using it.” Asked why she had admitted the charge, she said: “I did stab him, but I overreacted.” She said she kept a knife under her bed for protection because she usually lived alone, denied wanting to tie him up, denied any interest in sexual violence, and said she had no idea why her phone showed a search for the sentence for attempted murder. She told the court she was being treated for depression and that the prospect of sex gave her panic attacks. The court heard she had been through a traumatic experience as a child. The Phone Detective Constable Calvin Greaves of Cumbria Police told the court that police found a number of “highly concerning” images on her iPhone. Fourteen, out of nearly 18,000 stored on the phone, were shown in court, the Mirror reported. One showed a woman covered in blood with the caption: “Murder is like a bag of chips. You can’t stop after just one.” Another read: “My next relationship is either going to be my last relationship or my next murder.” Another claimed that more serial killers are born in November than in any other month. Adams called that “a tasteless joke.” Others showed duct tape with a reference to escape, and violence to genitals. The Judgment Carlisle Crown Court, July 2024. Adams was sentenced here on May 2, 2018. Credit: Jonathan Hutchins / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Judge Adkin rejected her account and accepted Bewick’s. He found she had planned the attack, carrying both the knife and duct tape to the bedroom. “You had decided to cause serious harm to Mr Bewick during sex,” he said. By the time she arrived at his bedroom door dressed as a clown, the judge said, she knew what she was going to do. “I am sure that by that time you had already become disinhibited by drink and drugs and the more sadistic side of your personality had come to dominate.” He called the attack “cruel and sadistic” and said: “You are a woman who appears to have some interest in sadistic sexual activity.” The defence described her as a “vulnerable girl” with “emotional problems” who had shown remorse. He ruled her a dangerous offender and imposed an extended sentence of 11 and a half years in custody plus a four-year extended licence. The Times and Star reported she would have to serve two thirds of the custodial term before she could apply for parole, and would only be released if officials judged it safe. Adams sobbed in the dock. The Victim’s Statement “I struggle with the knowledge that someone I genuinely cared about would do this to me,” Bewick wrote. “Having had time to think about it, I am convinced that she planned it. It wasn’t personal. She was going to do it to someone and it just happened to be me. Strangely, that makes it easier to deal with.” He said he struggled to sleep. “I have always had a fear of clowns and Zoe knew this. This will now only increase my fear of clowns.” After the hearing, DC Greaves said Bewick had been “very fortunate to escape with his life,” and praised him for giving detectives a statement “whilst only hours into his recovery.” The Appeal The Carlisle Courts of Justice, which house the city's Crown Court. Credit: Victuallers / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Adams appealed against the sentence. On September 19, 2018, the Times and Star reported that the Court of Appeal in London, with Mr Justice Lewis sitting with two other judges, had reduced the custodial term to nine years and the extended licence to three years. Her lawyers cited her youth and her progress in custody, including self-help work and Open University courses. “She was only 19 when she committed the offence,” Mr Justice Lewis said, by the Times and Star’s account. “We substitute a sentence of nine years and an extended licence period of three years.” The Parole Board In November 2024, the Mirror reported Parole Board documents showing that a panel had refused to release Adams in August 2024, and that her application for reconsideration had been dismissed by His Honour Jeremy Roberts. One factor was an incident in prison in which she wore clown make-up in front of other prisoners. The document noted that the victim of her offence suffered from coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, and that other prisoners knew about that part of her case. The Mirror quoted the decision: her prison offender manager described the incident as something to amuse other prisoners, but Adams herself said it was to regain control, to “make it me that was laughing at myself as opposed to them laughing at her.” The panel said: “Her need to control people, to control situations is similar to her state of mind at the time of the index offence and the panel thought this clown makeup situation was potentially offences parallelling behaviour to a certain degree.” Legal Status Zoe Adams pleaded guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Her extended sentence, as reduced on appeal in September 2018, is nine years in custody followed by a three-year extended licence. The Parole Board refused her release in August 2024 and a reconsideration application was dismissed later that year. No later parole decision or release has been reported in the sources reviewed. Frequently Asked Questions What did Zoe Adams do? On July 29, 2017, at her home in Wigton, Cumbria, she told Kieran Bewick to put a pillow over his face, then stabbed him five times with a kitchen knife. Did Kieran Bewick survive? Yes. He was 17 and survived with a punctured lung. What did she plead guilty to? Wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. What sentence did she first get? On May 2, 2018, at Carlisle Crown Court, Judge James Adkin found her dangerous and imposed 11 and a half years in custody plus four years on extended licence. What did the Court of Appeal do? In September 2018 it reduced the sentence to nine years in custody plus a three-year extended licence. Has she been released? The Parole Board refused release in August 2024, and a reconsideration application was dismissed. No later release has been reported in the sources reviewed. What was the Facebook group? Both were members of a group called Murder Files for Curious [People], the court heard. Sources “Teenage mother jailed over ‘sadistic’ knife attack,” BBC News, May 2, 2018. “Jailed mum who stabbed boy five times is a danger to the public, says judge,” Times and Star (West Cumberland), May 2018. “Wigton woman who stabbed teen lover in bed has jail term cut,” Times and Star, September 19, 2018. Joseph Curtis, Daily Mail, May 2, 2018 (trial of issue evidence). The Mirror, May 2, 2018 (victim’s account to police and phone evidence), and “Teen mum jailed for stabbing lover during ‘kinky sex’ taunted inmates with clown make-up,” November 27, 2024 (Parole Board documents).