Justice for husband who killed wife in last act of love
Jail term quashed for man who ended OAP’s torment
A DEVOTED husband jailed for killing his terminally ill wife in ‘a final act of love’ walked free yesterday after judges overturned his sentence.
Ian Gordon, 67, smothered 63-year-old Patricia with a pillow at their home as part of a ‘pact’.
He was jailed in October for three years and four months for culpable homicide.
But yesterday Appeal Court judge Lord Brodie, sitting with Lord Turnbull, quashed the sentence and admonished Mr Gordon.
Lord Brodie said it was accepted by the authorities and Gordon family that he had been motivated ‘solely by love’.
Calling it an ‘exceptional case’, he rejected the sentencing judge’s ruling that jail was ‘inevitable’.
Mother-of-two Mrs Gordon, of Troon, Ayrshire, had been ‘screaming’ and was ‘in excruciating pain’, the court heard.
It was suspected she had lung cancer, and she battled anxiety and depression. She feared hospitals so did not seek treatment.
The couple’s daughter Gail Whyte, 47, told police her father had told her he was ‘sorry’ and ‘couldn’t see her in that pain’.
She added: ‘[He] said, “I know I’m going to jail but I don’t have a single regret”.’
Yesterday, Gordon Jackson, QC, representing Mr Gordon, told the Criminal Appeal Court: ‘There was neither public nor private interest in the sentence of imprisonment.’
Mr Jackson, dean of the Faculty of Advocates, said a family doctor had described what Mr Gordon had done as ‘his final act of love’. Mr Jackson added: ‘As [his daughter] put it, “For dad, everything was about mum”.’
Explaining the decision to quash the sentence, Lord Brodie said: ‘The taking of human life is always a matter of the utmost seriousness... [but] this is indeed an exceptional case.’
He noted that Mr Gordon, a retired decorator, had an excelsaid: lent character and was devoted to his wife of 43 years.
Mr Jackson told the court Mrs Gordon had wanted her husband to care for her. Days before she died on April 28, 2016, she was admitted to hospital but stayed only a day and a half. Mr Jackson ‘She could not stand being there any longer.’
Mrs Gordon was taking painkillers but ‘they did not work very well any more’, Mr Jackson said, and as the pain became worse, ‘Mr Gordon did what he did’.
Mr Jackson said: ‘He says he could tell just looking at his wife and she was looking at him that that was what she wanted. There was no struggle. He simply placed the pillow and let her go.’
He said jailing Mr Gordon made the family ‘feel as if they have been given a double whammy’.
Mr Jackson added: ‘There is no reason why this man should be in jail.’
Mrs Gordon retired as a shorthand typist on medical grounds in 2006. She had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and feared she had lung cancer – later confirmed by a post-mortem. The Crown accepted that in the lead-up to her death, her husband was likely to have had a depressive illness.
His trial heard he told police: ‘I put a pillow over my wife’s head and set her free. I did it because she wanted me to. I loved her.’
Mr Gordon stood trial at the High Court in Glasgow on September 6 last year, charged with murder. Two days later, the Crown accepted a guilty plea to culpable homicide on the basis of diminished responsibility.
Lord Brodie said that in a case of murder only a life sentence is available but the court has wider discretion for culpable homicide.
The appeal judges said they would give full reasons in writing for their decision at a later date.
Earlier this month, Susanne Wilson, 73, of Ayr, was admonished at the High Court in Glasgow after smothering her sick husband Henry, 70, because she believed he wanted her to help him die.
‘I did it because she wanted me to’