Janice and David Hunter Wiki – Janice and David Hunter Biography
In 2021, 76-year-old David Hunter suffocated his wife Janice, who had a severe blood cancer. The British national was detained in Cyprus and accused of murder. A British citizen who was convicted guilty of killing his terminally sick wife was released from prison after 19 months after time served was taken into account, bringing assisted suicide to the forefront of discussion in the mostly Christian Orthodox nation of Cyprus.
After suffocating his wife, Janice Hunter, who had been battling blood cancer for years and was ready to pass away due to increasing agony, David Hunter, 76, was charged with premeditated murder and was facing an automatic life sentence. Justice Abroad, a legal team that represents British nationals who are involved in legal disputes outside of the U.K., said that he was found not guilty of the crime on Friday but was instead found guilty of manslaughter.
Janice and David Hunter Age
Janice was 68 years old and David Hunter is 76 years old.
Janice and David Hunter Incident Detail
According to state prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou, the court’s decision to reduce the charges, allowing for a more compassionate punishment, was based on the theory that David Hunter killed his wife “out of love,” sparing her from a more torturous death that she feared. Lesley Cawthorne, their daughter, stated on the CrowdJustice campaign page that her parents had been high school sweethearts for 56 years and “couldn’t bear to be apart.”
The campaign had raised more than £36,000 to cover legal fees and get her father back to the United Kingdom. “The home he shared with my mother was a place of warmth and joy,” Cawthorne said of David Hunter, who spent his career working in the mines and had retired with his wife to Paphos, Cyprus.
However, Janice Hunter was given a blood cancer diagnosis in 2016, and over the ensuing five years, according to her daughter, she grew “increasingly ill.” She had a deadly illness that had claimed the life of her sister, and she was in excruciating pain. She yearned to pass away and for her pain to be relieved.
According to the AP, Janice Hunter’s husband held his hands over her mouth and nose in December 2021 as she sat in her recliner until she stopped breathing. Cawthorne noted that her father had spent his life to taking care of her mother: “He is now in prison in Cyprus bewildered and terrified and separated from his family and friends.” She described the imprisonment and murder trial of her father as a “nightmare.”
David Hunter testified at the trial about his wife’s “suffering and the devastating impact it had on both of them,” according to his daughter. The court determined on Friday that David “had acted spontaneously to end the life of his wife of over 50 years, upon her begging him to do so because of the pain she was under,” according to a statement by Justice Abroad. Assisted suicide is still not permitted in Cyprus.
Despite serving 19 months of a two-year sentence, David Hunter was ordered released right away on Monday, according to the international legal team. Michael Polak, the director of Justice Abroad, said in a statement that the verdict, which found David Hunter not guilty of murder, and the low sentence were “what we have been fighting for in this case.” He added that he was “very pleased” with the court’s decision.
Given that a case like this had never been brought before the courts in Cyprus, he claimed that the sentencing “was not a simple one.” According to Polak, their attorneys “submitted extensive sentencing case law from across the common law world” on Thursday, including cases from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada. According to Polak, “this has been a tragic case and difficult for all of those involved with it,” adding that the “decision was the right one and allows David and his family to grieve together.”
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