David Hunter guilty of seriously ill wife's manslaughter in Cyprus

A British man who killed his seriously ill wife at their home in Cyprus has been convicted of manslaughter.

David Hunter, 76, was tried for murder but was cleared after suffocating 74-year-old Janice Hunter at their home 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.

Three judges at the district court in Paphos on Friday found him not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

He hugged his legal team and told the BBC he was "happy and elated" after the verdict was given.

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 and kept asking him to help end her life."

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

In May, Hunter told the court his wife begged him for five or six weeks to end her suffering.

He broke down in tears as he told the trial he would "never in a million years" have taken her life unless she had asked him to.

"She wasn't just my wife, she was my best friend," he said, adding her pleas became more intense each day.

He eventually relented and suffocated her after she became "hysterical", he said, adding: "I was hoping she would change her mind. I loved her so much."

He then tried and failed to take his own life, the court heard.

Hunter told reporters his time in a Cypriot prison was "nothing" compared to the last six months of his wife's life.

Speaking in June 2022, the couple's daughter, Lesley Cawthorne, told the BBC her mother had been "in absolute agony" in her final months.

Barry Kent, a friend of Hunter's who has raised thousands of pounds from people in Ashington to help fund legal costs, was in court when the verdict was delivered and he was said he was "relieved".