A British man accused of murdering his terminally ill wife says she ‘cried and begged’ him to kill her, a court heard.
Janice Hunter, 74, died of asphyxiation at the retired home she shared with her husband David Hunter near the coastal resort town of Paphos, Cyprus in December 2021.
The 75-year-old retired coal miner told a Cypriot court he felt ‘helpless and hopeless’ during the last weeks of his wife’s life and eventually granted her wish to die after she became ‘hysterical’ and unable to take care of herself.
David spoke of how Janice had become progressively more ill with blood cancer and had no quality of life.
Hunter is on trial for premeditated murder after a plea deal on the lesser charge of manslaughter collapsed last year, but his defence team say her death was assisted suicide.
The defendant, who held back tears as he gave evidence today, said: ‘I didn’t want to do it. I said no. I would never have helped her end her life if she had not begged me.’
His wife, who had blood cancer, ‘did not attempt’ to stop him as he put his hands over her mouth and nose, he told the court.
Hunter, from Ashington in Northumberland said: ‘I just kept my hands there.’
He described his marriage as ‘perfect’, adding: ‘After 57 years together, I really didn’t want to do it.’
As he recounted Janice’s final few weeks through an interpreter, he said: ‘She cried. She couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t move.
‘She was sleeping in the leather chair downstairs and for the last week we slept down on those chairs together. I felt so helpless and hopeless that I couldn’t do anything for her.
‘For five or six weeks before she died she was asking me to help her. She was asking me more every day.
‘In the last week she was crying and begging me. Every day she asked me a bit more intensely to do it. The last week, she started crying. She started crying and begging me.
‘She said, “I can’t go on. This life isn’t for me. We just go to the hospital and stay at home. I don’t have any quality of life and I’m totally bored of this. I can’t go on”.
‘She started becoming hysterical so I said, “Yes, I’ll help you”. I just told her that to calm her down.’
Hunter said Janice felt ‘shame’ for around three years as she was forced to wear nappies – leaving her unable to move and stuck in the house.
Describing his version of events on the day his wife died, the defendant told the court: ‘I don’t remember a lot of the last day. I went to make a cup of coffee and she started crying.
‘I remember that I had my hand on her mouth and nose. I don’t even know how I thought about it. I don’t know how long I kept my hands there for. She did not attempt to stop me.
‘In my statement I said that she was resisting but she wasn’t. She was moving her head. I don’t even think she opened her eyes.’
The defendant told the court he tried to kill himself after his wife’s death and when the police arrived to quiz him after his failed suicide attempt, he said he ‘was interested in nothing’.
David’s previous plea for a charge of manslaughter in December collapsed and he is now in the dock for murder.
Prosecutors failed to accept that his wife asked him to end her life unless he had proof.
‘If we accept this, every other man in the future who kills a woman will say “We had an agreement”,’ State prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou told reporters.
The trial continues.
