Dementia-hit judge took his life so he would not be a burden to his wife
A SENIOR High Court judge took his own life to avoid being a burden on his wife after developing dementia, an inquest heard yesterday.
Sir Nicholas Wall left notes stressing that she had her “life to live” but that he had “lost the will to live”, the hearing was told.
The 71-year-old former High Court family division president hanged himself in his room at a care home.
Roger Hatch, senior coroner for North West Kent, said it was clear the Cambridge-educated lawyer had intended to die.
Detective Sergeant Robert Grieve told the inquest that in one letter addressed to his wife Margaret, whom he met when both were teenagers, he said he did not believe he could ever return home.
He said: “Sir Nicholas said he had lost the will to live and he will not get better and that Lady Wall had a life to live.
“He said his time is over, it’s nobody’s fault and he respects what she has done for him.”
In another letter, the judge said he had “no hope for the future” and believed he would lose his memory as his dementia grew worse. Sir Nicholas’s body was discovered when a nurse visited his room at the home where he was living in Sevenoaks, Kent.
Det Sgt Grieve said the previous evening the carer had taken him tea and medication. She said he made a joke to her about her being late and smiled before she left him reading a book.
His cause of death was recorded as “suspension”, but with a secondary cause listed as fronto temporal dementia. Sir Nicholas, a father of four, was President of the Family Division for two years up to 2012, when he was forced to retire due to ill health.
During his spell in charge, he campaigned for greater transparency in the family courts and published a guide on how they should be reported more freely by the media.
He first became a High Court judge 24 years ago and worked at the Employment Appeal Tribunal and then the Administrative Court before being promoted to the Court of Appeal in 2004.
In 2011, he called for a “live-in lovers” law to protect women in long-term relationships from losing their home and income in a break-up.
He also said couples should be allowed to divorce without having to blame one another, adding he could “see no good arguments against no-fault divorce”.
Born in Clapham, south London, the keen cyclist attended Dulwich College before reading English and then law at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Lady Wall declined to comment following the hearing in Maidstone, Kent.