Brit accused of murdering his terminally ill wife said I really didn’t want to do it

The British pensioner accused of murdering his terminally ill wife in Cyprus has recounted how she “cried and begged” him to kill her for weeks.

David Hunter, 75, was overcome with emotion as he described his painful final months with Janice, 74, before making the heartbreaking decision to end her suffering.

He shared how his teenage love had been reduced to wearing diapers, covered in skin lesions, and could no longer stand due to her devastating blood cancer.

The retired miner had to treat her at home due to Covid restrictions as she deteriorated before his very eyes.

He told the court that his wife cried in pain 24 hours a day.

He burst into tears when he told the court how he killed his wife after she “begged” him for six weeks.

He said, ‘I don’t remember much about the last day. I went to make coffee and she started crying.’

He described going to the kettle and grabbing the couch for support while his wife sat next door sobbing.

“Before I knew it, I was laying my hands on her,” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “When it was done, she had a gray color. She didn’t look like my wife and it was the first time I’d cried in years.”

He described how he stood next to her and put his left hand on her nose and right hand on her mouth to smother her.

When prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou suggested that Mrs. Hunter struggled and scratched him as he smothered her, Mr. Hunter told him, “She never fought, she never moved.” You talk nonsense.’

Mr. Hadjikyrou then suggested that Mr. Hunter had intended to kill his wife and did not tell her, to which he replied, “I would never take my wife’s life if she had not asked me.”

“She wasn’t just my wife, she was my best friend.” He added: “She wasn’t crazy, you haven’t seen the strain of the past six years, what she’s been through.

‘The situation, the pressure. I wouldn’t want anyone to go through the last six months we both went through.”

The prosecutor replied, “Mr. Hunter, there are people who go through much worse pain.”

Mr Hunter said he had not told the doctors about his wife’s suicidal wishes because she had asked him not to, fearing they would take her to hospital. He didn’t tell their daughter because he didn’t want to “worry” her.

After the cross-examination was over, Mr. Hunter asked to address the judge. He told him, “My wife suffered and she basically said, ‘I don’t want to live anymore,’ and I still said no.

Then she started to get hysterical. I hoped she would change her mind. I loved her so much. I didn’t plan it, I swear to God.’

On Monday morning, he told the court about the events leading up to the day he suffocated his wife. “I never would have helped her end her life if she hadn’t begged me,” he said, for the first time after more than 20 appearances in 18 months. “For six weeks she asked if I could help her. For six weeks I refused.’

Describing her pain, he told the Paphos court: ‘She lay down, she was in pain, suffering. I would do anything to help her. The last thing on my mind was taking her life. The last thing.’

He said she was “locked in the house” and unable to move because of her diarrhea – a side effect of her medication that has seen her wear diapers for the past three years.

“She was crying, she couldn’t do anything, she couldn’t move,” he said. “She slept downstairs in the leather chair, and for the past week we’ve slept together on those chairs.

“I felt so helpless and hopeless that there was nothing I could do for her. Five or six weeks before she died she asked me to help her, she asked me more every day.

“She has been crying and begging me for the past week. Every day she asked me a little more intensely to do it. I didn’t want to do it after 57 years together. I really didn’t want to do it.’

Mr. Hunter said he repeatedly told her he couldn’t bring himself to kill her, but she begged him, telling him, “I can’t go on, this is no life for me.”

In the past few days she went from just crying to being more emotional. He said, “She was starting to get hysterical, so I told her, ‘Yeah, I’m going to help you.’ I just told her to calm her down.’

When asked how the past few days have been, Mr. Hunter said, ‘She cried, cried, cried, begged, begged, begged.

She wasn’t taking good care of herself. For the last two or three weeks she couldn’t move her arms and her legs were bothering her, she couldn’t find her balance.

‘She was just eating soup, she couldn’t keep anything down. She lost a lot of weight. She lost so much weight that there was no meat left to put her injections in.’

He said that in those last days he was “thinking 24/7 about what to do” before finally making the decision to go through with it when she started screaming in pain again.

Mr. Hunter said, “I remember having my hand over her mouth and nose. I don’t even remember how I felt about it. I don’t know how long I kept my hands there.

“She didn’t try to stop me…I don’t even think she opened her eyes.”

After she died, he kissed her forehead and told her he loved her, before confessing to his brother who alerted the police. He said he does not recall being arrested or giving any interviews to police.

During cross-examination, Prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou said, “I tell you that you decided to kill her and there was no general consent, and you only had to decide on the day to kill her.”

Mr. Hunter replied, “No, I never meant to kill her. I had hoped for eight or nine days that she would get better, that she would change her mind.’

He added, “The last thing on my mind was taking her life — the last thing,” before pointing to the accuser and saying, “That’s his idea, that’s not my idea.”

Earlier he told how he met his wife when she asked him to dance at a miners party in Northumberland.

“She came up to me and said, ‘You’re in my chair.’ I had never seen such a beautiful woman,’ he said.

From there they were always together, he said, and they married in 1969 at St John’s Church in Ashington.

When asked how their marriage was, he said, “Perfect.” He told how he worked at the mine seven days a week to pay for their only child, Leslie, and become the first member of the family to attend college.

He and his wife visited Cyprus on holiday and bought a house there in 1999 before moving to the other side of the world to retire two years later.

Mr. Hunter said, “The first 16 years before she got sick, apart from a few surgeries, were absolutely fantastic.”

But Mr Hunter suffered a stroke in 2015 and it was during regular trips to hospital for his treatment that a doctor noticed his wife looking very pale.

She was diagnosed with blood cancer and had to travel to the capital Nicosia every week for procedures and injections.

As her condition worsened she asked to go to Paphos General Hospital as she couldn’t cope with the travel but when Covid hit it was shut down and so they kept her injections in their fridge and self-medicated.

Mr. Hunter told how he called the hospital five times a day, but there was no answer and he was forced to travel to more distant centers for help and supplies.

She received two injections of 125 euros per week, but suffered from side effects such as diarrhoea, headache, dizziness and nosebleeds.

Mrs. Hunter’s hemoglobin level was such that she could not take any painkillers and remained at home in agony, unable to move.

In her final months, she underwent a series of surgeries for skin lesions on her face and hands, as well as knee surgery and another for her collarbone.

Following his hearing, Mr Hunter told the press he was happy to finally give his report after waiting 18 months.

“I’ve had my say, this is what I wanted,” he said. “To tell them things they’ve never thought of.

“For six weeks when she asked me, it was 24 hours. She was my wife, my best friend.

“The past six months, I wouldn’t want anyone to go through that. Prison, however, is nothing compared to what we’ve done.’