PETERBOROUGH WOMAN WITH SEVERE DEPRESSION KILLS HUSBAND AFTER TRIVIAL ARGUMENT
A wife killed her husband with his own dressing gown cord after a "petty" argument, a court heard.Lorraine Smith murdered Andrew Smith, 70, at their Peterborough home in December 2021 following a "trivial" disagreement.
At Peterborough Crown Court, Smith, 64, of Beauvale Gardens, was given a hospital order for manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
An expert determined that her severe depression was a significant factor in the killing and that she had lost control.
Smith was initially charged with murder, but prosecutors accepted her plea to a lesser charge after concluding "the killing in this case is explicable by the illness which she was suffering." Prosecutor Andrew Jackson told the court that the couple had been married for over 30 years and lived in a "tidy and well-kept house." He also mentioned that Mr.
Smith was seen on CCTV on 10 December when he went to collect a prescription for his wife.
Following the incident, Smith made a 999 call around 1 pm the next day, but she was silent.
She made another call in the early hours of Monday, which led police and paramedics to attend, and it appeared Mr.
Smith had been dead for some time.
During the call, she told the operator, "I don't know what I've done, I don't know what happened." After her arrest, she told officers, "I can't believe what I've done." In a police interview, she expressed her love for her husband and said he was a good man and that the murder was not his fault.
The court heard that the argument which led to her killing was petty and trivial, involving prolonged strangulation beyond unconsciousness.
Experts agreed that her depressive condition would not have substantially impaired her ability to understand her conduct.
Judge Sean Enright stated that the defendant actively sought treatment and concluded that "This offence was driven by a serious undiagnosed medical issue."
