A WOMAN who failed to call for help when her frail, reclusive husband took a fatal drugs overdose was acquitted of manslaughter yesterday.

Jill Anderson, 49, was found not guilty after a jury at Leeds Crown Court heard she could have saved her husband's life by dialling 999.

Paul Anderson, 43, who was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome - ME - was weak and in constant pain when he took an overdose of morphine at their home in Galphay, near Ripon, North Yorkshire. He died the next day.

After the case, Mrs Anderson's solicitor, John Mewies, said: "For the last 22 months, Jill Anderson has had to endure the death of her husband, the ignominy of being arrested, an interminable police inquiry and now a trial.

"By the verdict of the jury, her actions on 17 and 18 July 2003 have been totally vindicated. She did what she thought was right and proper and, more importantly, what she believed her husband would have wished."

Mrs Anderson showed no emotion as the jury returned its unanimous verdict.

The jury heard that Mr Anderson made two previous suicide attempts when his wife had intervened and called for medical assistance. But she told police he had just "slept it off" in hospital on each occasion.

Instead of calling for help when he told her he had "taken enough this time", she ran the risk that he would recover and sat with him as he went into a deep sleep.

She did not call a doctor until several hours after he had turned blue the next morning.

Mrs Anderson told police that it was the biggest regret of her life and that, with hindsight, she should have called for an ambulance.

The court heard the couple had been in the "strongest and most loyal of relationships" for ten years and that Mr Anderson had been ill since March 21, 1995, two days before they married.

The court heard that Mrs Anderson told police her husband had made his own decision to take his life.

Paul Worsley, defending, told the jury that "if anything was going to make you slip into deep, deep, depression and despair", then that would be it.

The jury also heard expert evidence that Mr Anderson could have survived if he had received medical assistance immediately after he stopped breathing.