Husband cleared over stabbed wife

A RETIRED 90-year-old butcher was yesterday cleared of attempting to murder his blind, ailing wife after she defended him as a ‘wonderful man’.

Edward Turpin was convicted at the Old Bailey of wounding after he knifed his diabetic wife of 60 years, Joan, also 90.

Turpin, of Orpington, south-east London, is said to have struggled with caring for her, and stabbed her to ‘quieten her down’. He then knifed himself, called 999 and said: ‘We want to die.’

But after the attack in September last year, Mrs Turpin told police: ‘Adore him.’ Her husband will be sentenced later.