Guilt led to confession
A woman who admitted causing the death of her husband told police during her confession that she acted in selfdefence and didn’t want to kill him.
Last week Susan Mouat was sentenced to 11 months’ home detention by Justice Peter Churchman in the High Court at New Plymouth for the manslaughter of her husband Bruce Mouat on July 16, 2011.
Initially she told police she had been in bed at their Ha¯ wera home and denied any involvement in her husband’s death from falling and hitting his head on a concrete paver.
However, in 2016 the guilt got the better of Mouat. The
51-year-old said keeping the secret had made her sick when she confessed to pushing
Bruce in the chest during an interview with police in Hastings on October 19 – just days after she had been charged with manslaughter.
‘‘I would like to, for this to be over and say that, um, the night Bruce died, previous to this I maintained that I had nothing to do with this death, but on the night that Bruce died, was seriously injured, I had pushed him in a, a form of self-defence because he was excessively drunk and I asked him to leave and that push resulted in his falling down the stairs and hitting his head, which then resulted in his death,’’ a transcript of her interview said.
‘‘I have been very unwell as, as a result of trying to keep that lie. I just wish for it now to be over and I’m ready.’’
Mouat said she hadn’t intended to hurt her husband, who had taken a protection order out against her in 2006, but had just wanted him to leave when he came home extremely drunk.
‘‘We had done this dance too many times before and I had learnt to walk away or tried to walk away and it was like I couldn’t get away you know, he was still trying to come back and I wanted him gone.
‘‘At this point I want – I didn’t want him dead sounds terrible, I just wanted him to go away.’’
The couple had had a volatile relationship fuelled by alcohol and when Bruce returned home intoxicated after a work event in the early hours of the morning it was the final straw for his wife.
‘‘He was quite abusive and nasty which is how he can be when he’s been drinking and I was really disappointed and, and I was really angry with him for letting me down, letting him down,’’ she told Taranaki detectives Guy Jackson and Mike Thorne.
The couple had a pact not to consume alcohol and Mouat, who had 17 previous convictions, the majority for violence and threats towards Bruce, said at the time she felt disgusted in the whole relationship.
‘‘I said just go, just go, I’m sick of, I’m sick of the drinking.’’
After the fall Mouat put warm clothes on Bruce and tried to help him but couldn’t lift him so an ambulance was called. He was taken to Hawera Hospital, then transferred to Taranaki Base Hospital before being flown to Wellington Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery for his head injury but never regained consciousness and died 11 days later.
Despite her confession to police Mouat initially pleaded not guilty to a charge of manslaughter in November
2016.
However, in September this year she changed her plea to guilty at the last minute just as her trial was due to start and officially admitted what she had done.