A 73-year-old woman smothered and killed her controlling and coercive husband of 53 years after he smiled when she confronted him over the latest in a long line of financial crises.
Janet Dunn was jailed for five years and three months on Thursday after she pleaded guilty to manslaughter by way of diminished responsibility.
Newcastle crown court heard that Dunn was quiet and shy. Her 81-year-old husband, Anthony, was verbally abusive, had a quick temper and was financially reckless, often making grand promises he could never keep.
In March this year, Dunn confronted her husband about the family’s latest financial crisis, which risked having their home repossessed. When she said they would have to borrow money, again, from one of their daughters her husband, who was frail and with early signs of dementia, smiled.
Judge Paul Sloan QC, the recorder of Newcastle, said: “After decades of compliance and submission, it was the smile that finally caused you to snap. The anger and frustration you had repressed for years boiled over.”
The court heard that Dunn put a pillow over her husband and kept it there for at least two minutes. After making sure he was dead, she fled the house and drove to a nearby beauty spot where she attempted suicide.
The couple’s eldest daughter found her dead father at the family home in Ponteland, Northumberland, and dialled 999.
John Elvidge QC, defending, said it was an extraordinary case. “The facts and the background are extremely sad and distressing.”
In spite of everything, Dunn did love her husband, he said.
Psychiatric evidence suggested she was going through “an abnormality of mental functioning” which was a consequence of the “traumatic relationship with her husband”.
The prosecutor Peter Glenser QC said the couple’s youngest daughter gave evidence to police in which she said her childhood home had little warmth. “Her parents would angrily whisper to each other. She described her father as being very controlling.”
The court heard the daughter would often loan money to her parents and not get it back.
Addressing Dunn directly, the judge said her husband’s behaviour had eroded her confidence and self-esteem.
“You became submissive and wholly dependent upon your husband,” he said. “The marriage was punctuated by one financial crisis after the other … brought about by your husband’s reckless conduct.
“One house was repossessed. There was bankruptcy. Bills were left unpaid. There were creditors. There were visits by bailiffs. You had to borrow money from your own father and your own daughters with no prospect of repayment, which caused you considerable shame and embarrassment.
“Anthony Dunn would make grandiose promises that he could pay for a daughter’s wedding reception, that he would buy a house for a daughter etc. But the promises came to nothing. You were left constantly worrying about when the next financial crisis would envelop you.”
The judge said the couple’s daughters had been left “devastated and traumatised” and had been left wondering “whether they really knew either of their parents at all”.
Dunn had initially pleaded not guilty to murder and was due to face a trial this week. On Monday she pleaded guilty to manslaughter, which the prosecution accepted.
Det Ch Insp Matt Steel, of Northumbria police, said it was an “incredibly awful case”.
“Our thoughts remain with his family as they continue to come to terms with this tragic incident. This guilty plea will spare them a trial and the added stress that can bring.”
