Keep up to date with all the big stories from across Greater Manchester in the daily Mancunian Way newsletter.
You can receive the newsletter direct to your inbox every weekday by signing up right here.
Here is today's Mancunian Way:
by BETH ABBIT - Fri July 22, 2022
Hello and welcome,
Graham Mansfield’s conviction for manslaughter following a failed suicide pact with his wife raises a number of questions. The pensioner says the case should never have reached court and believes euthanasia should be legalised in the UK.
Our crown court reporter Andrew Bardsley has covered the trial in depth. We’ll be discussing the case with him and explaining why the pensioner was prosecuted.
An act of love
When Dyanne Mansfield was told she had stage four lung cancer, she asked her husband Graham to kill her if things got 'too bad'. He agreed on the proviso that he would ‘go with her’ as he couldn’t live without her.
So when Mrs Mansfield found herself in unbearable pain, the devoted couple drove out to Buxton and Macclesfield to find a 'quiet' and 'convenient' place to carry out the pact. Instead they decided to use their garden the following day.
In an exclusive interview, Mr Mansfield told reporter Damon Wilkinson how he had made arrangements beforehand - cancelling the papers, the milk delivery and the window cleaner, emptying the freezer and tidying the house.
A note left nearby addressed to police read: "We have decided to take our own lives."
The couple’s last night together was spent 'crying and telling each other how much we loved one another'.
At around 5pm the next day they poured themselves drinks, made their way down to the bottom of the garden of their home in Hale, and sat at two chairs.
After checking if she was ready, Mr Mansfield slit his wife’s throat - an act he says ‘went against every fibre of my body’. He then tried to take his own life, but passed out before waking up in the kitchen the next morning and calling 999.
He was arrested and charged with murder and this week endured a four-day trial at Manchester Crown Court after denying the charge. Jurors found him guilty of manslaughter, believing it was 'more likely than not' that the suicide pact was a joint agreement between the couple.
Mr Mansfield was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence by judge Mr Justice Goose, who said the killing was 'an act of love, of compassion to end her suffering'.
"The last thing you would have wanted was not joining your wife in death," he said. "The circumstances of this case have been a tragedy for you and exceptional in the experience of this court."
Court reporter Andrew Bardsley, who covered each day of the trial, describes the case as ‘extraordinary’. “For a murder trial to conclude in four days is normally unheard of. At times, the prosecution seemed like it was also a case for the defence, after many witness statements told of Mansfield’s devotion and love for his wife,” he says.
“A key moment was on day three, when the judge, in the absence of the jury, ruled that under the law Mansfield did not have a defence to manslaughter. From then, it was a question of whether the jury would ignore the law in sympathy with Mansfield or follow the guidance from the judge.
“They followed the law set out to them. And an extraordinary case ended with an extraordinary sentence, a convicted killer being allowed to walk free after the judge said he had ended her life in an ‘act of love’.”
Mr Mansfield says his case should never have reached the courts and insists the couple did ‘nothing wrong’. “We didn't need permission from other people. It was our decision. I killed her with love,” he said.
The pensioner says the couple would have considered going to Dignitas, in Switzerland, if the Covid lockdown hadn't stopped international travel. He is calling for euthanasia to be legalised in the UK. "If someone is terminally ill, if they're in pain, what's wrong with saying I don't want to live any more? [Euthanasia] is a humane and sensible way to do things. The law meant we had to resort to this barbaric method."
It’s an opinion shared by Sarah Wootton, chief executive of campaign organisation Dignity in Dying. She says current laws ‘force loving family members to become criminals’. “Without urgent reform we will certainly see more tragic cases like the Mansfields, but fortunately the clamour for change is louder than ever,” she said.
“An assisted dying law would include upfront safeguards to better protect people, and ensure anyone considering assisted dying was making a voluntary and fully informed decision, and receiving proper medical support.”
Mrs Mansfield’s brother, Peter Higson says he would have been 'very unhappy' if his 73-year-old brother-in-law was jailed. He says he understands Mr Mansfield’s predicament having previously found himself in a similar situation when his own wife died from cancer.
“I don't hold any malice against Graham and will continue to value his friendship in the future,” he said in a statement, adding: "I believe that Graham has suffered more than enough and that he will never get over this ordeal."
So why was Mansfield was hauled before the courts? The Crown Prosecution Service say he was convicted due to a lack of evidence to explain his wife’s wishes.
Martin Goldman, of CPS North West says it was a ‘tragic case’. ”As prosecutors we carefully weighed the evidence in this case, including the lack of any evidence to confirm Dyanne Mansfield’s wishes, and using our legal guidance determined that a prosecution was in the public interest,” he said. “The CPS produced evidence at court in the form of witness testimony, forensic evidence and exhibits to show the planning involved in the death of Dyanne Mansfield. Mansfield failed to convince the jury that this had been a lawful killing.”
Suicide pact scenarios are less likely to be pursued by the CPS, but in this case prosecutors decided it was in the public interest. The CPS is currently consulting on the public interest factors involved in charging suspects who believe they were acting wholly out of compassion. The proposed update to the legal guidance on murder and manslaughter does not touch on ‘assisted dying’ and doesn’t immune suspects from prosecution if they claim it was a ‘mercy killing’ or failed suicide pact.
Job losses
A total of 400 jobs are to be axed at Co-op’s Manchester city centre headquarters, in Angel Square. Bosses say the decision - which comes two months after the chief executive stepped down - was made 'with a heavy heart'.
"The tough trading environment, including rising inflation, means we have taken the difficult decision to bring forward some of the changes we had planned for 2023", a spokesman said.
Co-op sold a 51 percent share of its Angel Square headquarters, in Manchester’s Noma district, for £142m in 2013. The building was put back on the market last month with a price tag of £210m.
Co-op has its origins in the co-operative consumer societies started by the Rochdale Pioneers in 1863. Formed by grocers when poverty was rife, members contributed £1 each to buy a share in the fledgling business and the money was used to buy goods to sell in a rented shop. Its main rule was that profits would be shared between members.
Burnham vs Shapps
Grant Shapps has slammed Andy Burnham for supporting striking workers over pay deals. The Transport Secretary said railways are in a 'perilous state' following Covid and the industry needs modernising to aid 'levelling up'.
He accused the mayor of supporting ‘disruptive strike action' which 'paralysed most of the North', as Charlotte Cox reports.
"We heard stories of holidaymakers stranded at Manchester Airport unable to get home, hospital appointments missed, and one parent who faced a journey of 180 miles so her sons could take their GCSEs. It begs the question – whose side is the Mayor on?” he said.
Mr Burnham's office said Mr Shapps is ‘wrong to criticise people’s right to fight for their income’. “The Government has everything in their ability to get an agreement and stop these strikes, but they are not. It is almost as if they want the controversy of these strikes to take place,” a spokesperson said.
“Everybody should turn their anger and criticism towards the people who are failing to fix this situation – the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and the rest of the Government."
Weather, etc.
- Saturday: Sunny intervals changing to cloudy by late morning. 21C.
- Pollen count: Medium.
- Roads closed: Delph New Road, Dobcross, in both directions for roadworks between Wall Hill Road and Oldham Road until August 5.
- Trams: No service on Metrolink between Eccles and MediaCityUK due to engineering works until October 21.
- Today's Manc trivia question: Which famous Mancunian wrote 'A Clockwork Orange'?
Answer at the bottom of the newsletter
Manchester headlines
Murder probe continues: The parents of a murdered teenager Kennie Carter have spoken of their 'sheer hell' ahead of what would have been his 17th birthday. Kennie was followed and stabbed to death as he walked home in January. Police have made 14 arrests in connection with his killing and 10 people remain under investigation. His mum Joan Dixon has asked parents to speak to their children. "It's not about grassing, a child has been murdered. He was there one minute and he's been taken the next minute. It's just been sheer hell, it's been horrible," she says.
Ambulance pressures: 'Septic patients' were held outside hospitals on ambulances without air conditioning on the hottest days on record in the UK, North West Ambulance Service paramedics say. Staff say severely ill patients were kept in baking ambulances as hospitals struggled to relieve them. "There were people posting on social media with thermometers in the back of ambulances and the numbers were bloody high," one said
Last day: Bosses at Almost Famous, in the Northern Quarter, will give away one of the restaurant’s Banksy prints when it closes this weekend. Worth somewhere in the region of £5,000, the print will be the prize in a treasure hunt. The burger joint will be reopening at the former site of Home Sweet Home, which is run by the same company.
A breakfast fit for the Bard
William Keith Kellogg, and his brother, Dr John Harvey Kellogg, changed breakfast forever when they accidently flaked wheat berries in the late 1800s.
By 1922, the Kellogg's brand had arrived in the UK and the company opened a factory in Trafford Park in 1938. Some say the location was chosen by an American director who loved Shakespeare and didn’t realise that Stretford and Stratford were different places. Nostalgia reporter Jess Molyneux has been looking at the history.
Worth a read
When Newall Green High School closed its doors in August last year, hundreds of young students were displaced, forced to start again in schools miles from home.
Now a new school is set to open at the Newall Green site - a decision which has caused anger. Sophie Halle-Richards has been speaking to parents and teachers about the upheaval. One teacher, who retired when the school closed, says: “We were thrown on the scrap-heap. It just doesn't make sense."
That's all for today
Thanks for joining me, the next edition of the Mancunian Way will be with you around the same time on Monday. If you have any stories you would like us to feature or look into, please contact me at beth.abbit@menmedia.co.uk
And if you have enjoyed this newsletter today, why not tell a friend how they can sign up?
The answer to today’s trivia question, which famous Mancunian wrote 'A Clockwork Orange', is Anthony Burgess.
