OAP killed wife with iron bar in ‘an act of mercy’
A PENSIONER who battered his frail wife to death walked free from court yesterday after a judge said it had been an ‘act of mercy’.
Lawrence Franks, 84, said he had promised Patricia, his wife of 62 years, that he would look after her, and he killed her so she would not have to move into a care home.
Yesterday Franks wept as a judge spared him jail, saying it was an ‘exceptional’ case and that the pensioner was a devoted man who had shown ‘nothing but love and affection’ for his wife.
Imposing a suspended sentence, Judge David Stockdale, QC, said the killing had been a ‘spur of the moment’ act in the ‘genuine belief this was an act of mercy’.
In June, Franks, a retired leisure centre manager, suffered a hernia while lifting his wife into bed and had to go to hospital for surgery. Mrs Franks, 86, spent two weeks in a care home while he recuperated.
But on her return her worsening dementia meant she struggled to recognise her husband, and he had to beg for help from a neighbour to lift her into bed.
The following morning, he found she had been incontinent during the night and he fetched an iron bar, beat her about the head and then smothered her. Franks then telephoned his niece – the childless couple’s nearest relative – and told her he had ‘put her out of her misery’.
Police were called and the pensioner was charged with murder, but his guilty plea to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility was accepted.
The couple had spent their lives in Gatley, near Stockport. Ten years ago, former hospital clerk Mrs Franks began suffering from dementia and struggled to move unaided, Manchester Crown Court heard.
She told her husband, ‘never put me in a care home’, so he cared for her himself, refusing offers of help.
He lifted her between her bed, a wheelchair and her favourite armchair, and had a conservatory built so she could enjoy the view.
But the exertions led to a hernia, and he was admitted to hospital, with his wife temporarily placed in a care home, prosecutor Charlotte Crangle told the court.
‘When she returned home she became confused as to where she was and not recognising her husband,’ she said.
On July 7, Franks had to ask a neighbour to help lift her into bed, and the following morning he found she had been doubly incontinent during the night.
Realising he could no longer cope, he killed her and contacted his niece. Franks then phoned 999 and said he had ‘killed his wife’, adding he ‘couldn’t watch her struggle’.
The couple’s nephew, Samuel Whiteside, said: ‘We believe Larry did what he did because he couldn’t bear seeing my auntie as she was. My family hold no malice towards him.’
The judge said the pensioner’s remorse was ‘profound and genuine’ and it was ‘an exceptional case’.
‘We hold no malice towards him’