A district court in Cyprus has ruled that a British man committed manslaughter when he asphyxiated his terminally ill wife in their retirement home on the island in December 2021.
Judges sitting in the coastal city of Paphos said they had not found the former miner, David Hunter, 76, guilty of premeditated murder – the charge he had faced, which carries a life sentence.
The Briton, who claimed he smothered his wife, Janice, 74, to relieve her from the pain of blood cancer, sat grim-faced in the dock as the judge Michalis Droussiotis, presiding over the three-member tribunal, said there was no evidence to suggest “the murder had been preplanned”.
The verdict, reached almost 18 months after the trial began, was met with relief by Hunter’s lawyers, who told the Guardian it would allow the court “a freer hand” when it came to sentencing next Thursday. Throughout, legal proceedings had been harrowing, with Hunter frequently forced to relive the traumatic events of the night on which he eventually submitted to Janice’s pleas to end her suffering.
“We are pleased with the verdict today and we will be seeking to persuade the court to give David a suspended sentence,” said the British barrister Michael Polak, whose legal aid group, Justice Abroad, has coordinated the defence. Hunter, who has lost considerable weight in the country’s central prison where he shares a cell with 11 other men, told reporters he was “elated” with the result.
“He is really happy but also speechless,” said Polak. “So much was riding on this for him. He told me he hadn’t slept for three or four days and was so tired he couldn’t speak or even smile. This is a tragic case. Janice and David were in a loving relationship for more than 50 years and it is clear that David did what he did out of love for his wife, upon her request.”
In an emotional testimony before the court in May, Hunter – who overdosed on prescription pills and alcohol in an attempt to kill himself on the same night – described Janice as “not only my wife but my best friend”.
The judgment is likely to prompt further debate on euthanasia, outlawed in Cyprus and long considered taboo. MPs in the Mediterranean country, where the Greek Orthodox church holds considerable sway, are due to begin debating legislation that would allow assisted dying and bring the island in line with other EU member states, but opposition is expected to be fierce.
Janice’s debilitating illness and death marked a grim end to the “dream life” abroad the couple had sought when they moved to Cyprus, a former British colony, 20 years ago.
In mitigation arguments, Polak said the defence team would submit examples of case law from other common law jurisdictions where the courts had found “a suspended sentence is appropriate in similar circumstances”.
He said: “There has been no case like this ever decided before on Cyprus. It is unprecedented.”
The pair had met as teenagers and lived together for more than 50 years. They bought a flat in Paphos but sold it to pay for Janice’s medical care as her condition worsened.
By the time they moved into a rented maisonette in the village of Tremithousa, in the hills above Paphos, they had become increasingly isolated, their solitude exacerbated by lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic when access to medicines that might have alleviated Janice’s pain also became harder to find.
Weeks before her death, the Briton said his wife had declined to the point where she could barely move, and she was in excruciating pain.
“I would never have helped her end her life if she hadn’t begged me. I didn’t want to. I had lived with her for 57 years. She wasn’t just my wife. She was my best friend,” he said, recalling the moment he took Janice’s head in his hands and blocked her mouth and nose, pressing hard until, drained of oxygen, her face turned grey.
Throughout the ordeal he was supported by their daughter, Leslie Cawthorne, the couple’s only child.
Hunter, originally from Ashington, Northumberland, could be free as early as next week if the court agrees to his legal team’s request to suspend his sentence. He has said he wishes to remain in Cyprus “close to my wife” who is buried in a cemetery on the edge of Tremithousa overlooking the sea.
