An Australian woman who helped her terminally ill husband end his life avoided further jail time after a court accepted that she had acted out of compassion.
Kylie Ellina Truswell-Mobbs, 52, from Queensland was sentenced to two years in prison on Monday but the sentence was immediately suspended because she had already spent 14 months in custody.
Ms Truswell-Mobbs had initially faced a murder charge over the December 2023 death of her husband, former firefighter David Ronald Mobbs, 56, at their home in Alexandra Hills near Brisbane. She pleaded not guilty to murder but admitted to assisting his suicide.
Prosecutors accepted the guilty plea, prompting Queensland’s Supreme Court to dismiss the murder charge.
As Ms Truswell-Mobbs left the court, she was cheered and embraced by relatives and supporters. “It feels good,” Ms Truswell-Mobbs said. “David was beautiful. He will never be forgotten about.”
She had broken down in the dock when Justice Tom Sullivan dismissed the murder charge against her.
Mobbs had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of the motor neurone disease in April 2023 and it had rapidly robbed him of his physical independence, the court heard. He had become completely bedridden within months and needed assistance to move. By early December, he had also lost the ability to speak.
Defence barrister Ruth O’Gorman told the court Mobbs communicated by blinking, making sounds or using a letter board when someone helped him move his hand.
He was experiencing significant distress and pain, including after losing the ability to use the toilet without assistance.
“That night he begged to die,” Ms O’Gorman said.
Mobbs died on 6 December 2023 after Ms Truswell-Mobbs gave him a lethal combination of drugs.
Her client had no criminal history and lived an “entirely blameless life”, Ms O’Gorman told the court. Ms Truswell-Mobbs had been with her husband for about 20 years, she added, and people who knew them had described her care for him after his sudden degenerative illness as “extraordinary”.
“It is uncontentious that she was a devoted carer,” the barrister said.
“It wasn’t a hastily made decision by Mr Mobbs,” she argues. “He had been expressing his desire for his life to be over for at least a month,” she said.
The case came in the backdrop of Queensland’s voluntary assisted-dying laws, which had taken effect earlier in 2023. Mobbs was believed to meet the medical criteria for accessing the scheme. However, Ms O’Gorman told the court that he had been informed that the process could take at least nine days.
The defence argued that the circumstances surrounding his death were open rather than secret, with members of his family and carers aware of what was happening.
“There was nothing secret about it. It was done with full knowledge of her sons and number of carers.”
Crown prosecutor Caroline Marco described the circumstances as difficult.
“It was exceptionally difficult circumstances in which she found herself,” she said. “He was approaching the end of his life and suffering considerably.”
Ms Marco said Ms Truswell-Mobbs’s actions “arose from compassion” and a “desire to relieve” that suffering. “Rather than selfish, improper, or ulterior motives,” she said.
“I accept what you did,” Justice Sullivan said, addressing Ms Truswell-Mobbs, “was motivated by love and affection in your case.”
“You’ve been a productive member of society,” he added, “and I’ve no doubt you will continue to be a productive member of society.”
