Janice and David Hunter.Photo:Lesley Cawthorne/crowdjustice
Lesley Cawthorne/crowdjustice
In a case that pushed assisted suicide to the forefront of conversation in the largely Christian Orthodox country of Cyprus, a British citizen found guilty of killing his terminally ill wife was let out of jail after 19 months after being credited with time served.
David Hunter, 76, had faced a premeditated murder charge with a mandatory life sentence after suffocating his wife, Janice Hunter, who had suffered for years from blood cancer and wanted to die because of escalating pain. He was found not guilty of the charge Friday and instead convicted of manslaughter, according toJustice Abroad, a legal team that represents British citizens facing legal issues outside of the U.K.
The court’s decision to downgrade the charges, allowing for a more lenient sentence, was based on the idea that David Hunter killed his wife “out of love,” saving her from a more painful death which she feared, state prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyroutold the AP.
The high school sweethearts were together for 56 years and “couldn’t bear to be apart,” their daughter, Lesley Cawthorne said onCrowdJustice campaign page, which had raised more than £36,000 to pay legal bills and get her father back to the United Kingdom.
David Hunter, who spent his career working in the mines, had retired with his wife to Paphos, Cyprus, and “the home he shared with my mother was a place of warmth and joy,” Cawthorne said.
But in 2016 Janice Hunter was diagnosed with blood cancer, and, her daughter said, she became “increasingly unwell,” over the next five years. “This was a terminal disease that had taken the life of her sister and the pain she was under was getting worse and worse. She wanted to die and wanted for her suffering to be ended.”
In December 2021, as Janice Hunter sat in her recliner, her husband covered her mouth and nose with his hands until she stopped breathing, the AP reported.
“My dad devoted himself to caring for my mum,” Cawthorne said, noting of his subsequent incarceration: “He is now in prison in Cyprus bewildered and terrified and separated from his family and friends.” She likened her father’s incarceration and murder trial to a “nightmare.”
During the trial, David Hunter took the stand to detail his wife’s “suffering and the devastating impact it had on both of them,” his daughter said.
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David Hunter was sentenced to two years in prison and subsequently ordered immediately freed Monday, based on 19 months already spent behind bars, the international legal team said.
The verdict, which concluded that David Hunter was not guilty of murder, and the light sentencing was “what we have been fighting for in this case,” Michael Polak, who runs Justice Abroad, said in a statement, adding that he was “very pleased,” with the court’s decision. He said that the sentencing “was not a simple one given that a case like this has never come before the courts of Cyprus before.”
Polak said that Thursday their lawyers “submitted extensive sentencing case law from across the common law world” — with examples from Australia, New Zealand, the U.K. and Canada.
“This has been a tragic case and difficult for all of those involved with it,” Polak said, adding that the “decision was the right one and allows David and his family to grieve together.”
source: people.com
