Kingston police have reported that 48 year old Hyojung Lim from New Malden is missing, and that she is known to frequent the Kingston area.

Nub News believes the missing person to be the same woman who was acquitted of her husband's murder 4 years ago, after a controversial court case.

Hyojung Lim, who was 44 at the time, warned her husband, Jaesok Lee, that he would die after she discovered he was having an affair, but was subsequently cleared of stabbing him to death.

The couple had lived in New Malden - home to Europe's largest North Korean population - after fleeing North Korea in 2007.

Lim claimed that her husband beat and raped her "almost daily" for years when they lived in North Korea and later in the UK.

During an interview with police on 3 March, Lim said her husband pulled a knife on her in their bedroom after they got back from a meal at a restaurant.

She stabbed him at their home in New Malden, Surrey, claiming she had acted in self-defence after he tried to attack her with a knife.

The flatmate was later awoken by shouting and found Lim sat on the bed next to her fatally wounded husband.

She later told the police : "If I had not acted in self-defence and taken the steps I took I know I would now be dead. It was him or me."

After her husband was killed she told a flatmate she had "revenged him for the last 13 years".

She made similar statements in a blood-stained note written immediately after the killing describing her revenge at perceived wrongs her husband had done her, the court heard.

Mr Lee was having an affair with another Korean woman, Yuni Choi, which resulted in her falling pregnant with his child.

Mr Lee befriended Yuni Choi through social media and soon spent the weekend in a London hotel before he went to stay with her up in Leeds in February, around a month before his death.

Mr Glasgow, prosecuting, added: "They spent four happy days together and the only interruption was his mobile telephone, which rang constantly, but he did not answer the calls."

When he eventually did pick up, Mr Lee's mistress was shocked to discover it was his wife at the other end who told her he had cheated many times.

Mr Lee then told his wife he wanted to leave her, because his mistress was pregnant.

In response to discovering Mr Lee's plans, Hyojung Lim sent a text message warning: "If you do that, you will die all of a sudden."

Another text, sent five days later, read: "I am as angry as I can be and I feel like making something happen now."

The day before Mr Lee's death, on March 1, he called Ms Choi telling her he was going to end things.

Oliver Glasgow, QC, prosecuting, said Lim claimed she had been the victim of "years of abuse, including repeated rapes at the hands of her husband".

"She claimed that he had tried to attack her with a knife," he continued. "She claimed that she had managed to disarm him and she claimed that she had stabbed him in order to prevent any harm coming to her."

A jury of seven men and five women deliberated for more than 20 hours before acquitting Ms Lim of murder and clearing her of an alternative manslaughter charge.

Hyojung Lim is now missing, and officers would like to speak to anyone with any information of her whereabouts to check that she is safe and well. If you have any information, please call the police on 101, quoting the reference 20MIS035832.