Husband left his dying wife naked on f loor for nine weeks, court told
A PENSIONER died after her husband left her naked and covered in sores on the floor of their home for nine weeks, a court heard yesterday.
Maureen Crilley, 67, was found by a doctor at the home she shared with her husband Neil.
The High Court in Glasgow heard she had not eaten or had anything to drink for around a week and was gasping for air when help arrived at the house, in the Whitecrook area of Clydebank, Dunbartonshire.
Crilley, 77, claimed he had not phoned for an ambulance after his wife’s initial collapse because she had ‘begged’ him not to get help.
The court heard Crilley eventually called the emergency services and his wife was taken to hospital.
However, she succumbed to her injuries and died a short time later.
Crilley denies a charge of culpable homicide in that he failed to get ‘appropriate, timely and adequate’ care for his wife, which caused her ‘unnecessary suffering’.
The trial heard that in a 999 phone call on September 2, 2017, Crilley told the operator: ‘She is conscious just now. Her back is sore as she has been lying on the floor for eight or nine weeks.’
He added: ‘She begged me not to phone but she is in terrible need.
‘She was slurring her words this morning and it’s making me really worried. It could be a mini youknow-what. She’s terrified of needles and doesn’t want to go to hospital.’
Jurors heard in previous evidence that after his 999 call, an out-ofhours GP went to the couple’s home and found Mrs Crilley, describing her case as one of the worst she had seen in 32 years. The doctor then called an ambulance. Among the prosecution claims is that Crilley knew his wife was ‘immobilised’ and suffering from injury and infection but failed to act between July 1 and September 2, 2017.
Mrs Crilley was taken to hospital in one ambulance while her husband went in another. During the journey, Crilley told ambulance technician Leanne Duffy that his wife had a fear of hospitals and asked: ‘Am I going to jail for this?’
Giving evidence, the witness said: ‘The woman was lying naked on the floor with sores and a bad leg. I’d never seen anything like this before.’
Dr Fraser Denny, who treated Mrs Crilley at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, also gave evidence. He told the court: ‘If medical treatment was found after she hurt her leg, then the chances of survival were certain.
‘She was left on the floor and that’s what led to her demise.’
Dr Denny told jurors that Mrs Crilley arrived at the hospital with two high-grade sores on her back. He said that the pensioner’s spine and muscle tissue could be seen through one.
An X-ray was carried out before her death which showed she had a fractured left ankle.
Jurors also heard that in the years before her death, Mrs Crilley had attended hospital for annual blood tests and she suffered with osteoporosis. Doctors acknowledged that she had been ‘needle phobic’ but she still had the tests.
One doctor’s report said: ‘The one issue is she is mortified of needles but she will grit her teeth and go through with this.’
The court also heard Mrs Crilley fractured her knee in 2016, but only sought treatment six weeks later after being ‘persuaded’ by the defendant to get help.
The trial, before judge Lord Burns, continues.
‘I’d never seen anything like it’