A British expat found guilty of killing his terminally ill wife lay flowers at her grave in an emotional first visit since being freed from a Cyprus prison.
Clutching a bouquet David Hunter scoured the graveyard for the name of his childhood sweetheart and partner of 52 years Janice.
He took a knee and was seen silently shaking as he paid his respects to his late wife for around 30 minutes on Tuesday morning.
The retired miner had been in jail for the manslaughter of Janice before being released on Monday.
Mr Hunter had never visited her final resting place as he was rushed to hospital after a failed suicide attempt and then taken straight into custody and prosecuted for murder.
Mrs Hunter, who died in December 2021, was buried at a cemetery minutes from the couple’s home in Tremithousa – a small village near the coastal resort town of Paphos.
Hunter could not initially find the grave and was guided to it by Michael Polak of Justice Abroad, which represented him during his trial.
The epitaph engraved upon the small, white cross, say: “Janice Lesley Hunter. Beloved wife of David, beloved mum of Lesley. ‘Goodnight sweetheart’.”Hunter stayed at the site for around half an hour.
The pensioner spent 19 months in prison before being cleared of premeditated murder but found guilty of manslaughter by a three-judge panel.
He was jailed for two years but allowed to walk free within 15 minutes of being sentenced at Paphos District Court due to time already served and good behaviour.
The couple’s daughter, Lesley Cawthorne, previously said she believes that, rather than return to the UK, her father will initially choose to stay in Cyprus to be near Mrs Hunter’s grave and “say his goodbyes properly”.
In an interview with the Mail, Hunter spoke of how he and his daughter, Lesley Cawthorne, both cried in an emotional video call made after he was released.
“I feel numb, it doesn’t feel real,” he told the Mail.
“When I spoke to Lesley the first thing I said was, ‘I love you’.”
He added: “We were both crying. She couldn’t talk. She started crying and she couldn’t say a word.”
The pensioner also said a police officer embraced him and told him he would be released following his sentence, the Mail reported.
“The policeman hugged me and said, ‘Congratulations David, you’re free, you got the result you deserve.’
“I just shook his hand and said: ‘Thanks, mate’.”
Hunter, from Ashington, Northumberland, told his trial, which lasted for more than a year, that his wife “cried and begged” him to end her life as she suffered from blood cancer.
He broke down in tears as he said he would “never in a million years” have taken Mrs Hunter’s life unless she had asked him to.
He showed the court how he held his hands over his wife’s mouth and nose and said he eventually decided to grant her wish after she became “hysterical”.
Judges heard he then tried to kill himself by taking an overdose but medics arrived in time to save him.
