British man who killed seriously ill wife cleared of murder

David Hunter, 76, was instead convicted of manslaughter after suffocating 74-year-old Janice Hunter at the property near Paphos in December 2021

By Edward Era Barbacena 

A British man who killed his seriously ill wife at their home in Cyprus has been cleared of her murder.

David Hunter, 76, was instead convicted of manslaughter after suffocating 74-year-old Janice Hunter at the property near Paphos in December 2021.

The retired miner from Ashington, Northumberland, maintained her death was assisted suicide and his wife, who had blood cancer, had begged him to end her misery.

He will be sentenced on 27 July.

Hunter's lawyer argued the death was assisted suicide because Mrs Hunter was suffering and she asked him to do it. His trial heard he had attempted to take his own life after she died.

As the three judges handed down their verdict at the district court in Paphos, Hunter hugged his legal team and told the BBC he was "happy and elated".

His lawyer Michael Polak, from Justice Abroad, said the verdict meant there was a "very good chance" his client would receive a suspended sentence and be able to return to the UK to live with his daughter.

"This wasn't a pre-planned act," Mr Polak said. "He acted on the spur of the moment because she was in so much pain."

Mr Polak said the judges accepted Hunter had a "loving" and "dream" relationship with his wife of more than 50 years and "on that morning she asked him to end her life".

Mr Polak said his client was "speechless" and "too tired to smile" after being cleared of murder, adding: "He said he hadn't slept for three or four days, but he is very pleased about what happened.

"He would like to thank everyone who supported him in this case. This is the result he was looking for."

A plea deal, which would have seen Hunter admit manslaughter, was agreed with prosecutors in November but the murder trial went ahead after the Cypriot authorities made a legal U-turn.

The couple's daughter, Lesley Cawthorne, said she was "genuinely stunned" by the verdict.

"My dad's not a murderer," she said. "My dad's never been a murderer. Now everybody knows that. It's just incredible. I can't believe it."

Ms Cawthorne said her father now had a "real chance" of seeing "the light of day again".

"He had almost two years of being a prisoner during lockdown, and then he went straight from that into prison. He's had over three years of his life that have been lived at somebody else's kind of whim."

She said he would probably choose to stay in Cyprus for a little longer "to spend some time with my mum" and visit her grave, which he has never seen.

Ms Cawthorne said Hunter would also need "time and space to acclimatise" before he could be the "best version of himself" and see family again.

She said the past 19 months of his incarceration had been exhausting but now there was "light at the end of the tunnel".