Jury told conviction would be "travesty of justice"

Jill Anderson, 49, who denies the charge at Leeds Crown Court, listened as the jury was told that if her husband, Paul, 43, had a ''fixed intention'' to commit suicide then she had committed ''no crime at all''.

Mr Anderson, who was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, ME, was weak, vulnerable and in constant pain when he took an overdose of morphine at their home at Westowe Cottage, Galphay, near Ripon, North Yorkshire, on July 17, 2003, and died the next day.

In his closing speech, Paul Worsley QC, defending, said: ''It would be a travesty of justice for this lady to be convicted of the grave crime of manslaughter, of criminally ending a life she had fought so hard to maintain.''

The court heard the couple had been in the ''strongest and most loyal of relationships'' for 10 years and that Mr Anderson had been ill since two days before their marriage eight years ago.

Mr Worsley said: ''We submit, what she did amounts to no crime at all. If Paul Anderson had a fixed intention to kill himself, or if he may have had a fixed intention, then Jill Anderson is not guilty.

''Each of us has the right to determine his or her own life, and that includes the right to die and if you're sure that Paul Anderson had made the decision after eight years of going to the doctors, after eight years of treatment and eight years of support, to end his own life, or if that may have been the case, then Jill Anderson is not guilty of any offence at all.''

Mr Worsley told the jury of eight men and four women that the trial was ''almost unique'' because it involved a defendant who had no intention of being deceitful or of committing a sexual or violent crime.

He said: ''This case, whatever your view, is a tragedy - a tragedy for Paul Anderson who took his own life, for his family who remember him when he was well and for Jill Anderson who spent eight wonderfully happy years loving him.''

He said the prosecution, led by David Perry, had said Anderson could have saved her husband's life by simply dialling 999.

Mr Worsley said: ''Why on earth didn't she do this? The only answer, we submit, is because she knew he wanted to go to die.

''Can there be any other explanation why this woman who loved her husband so much, and that has never been disputed by the prosecution, didn't pick up the phone?''

He invited the jury to conclude that Mr Anderson decided to end his own life with dignity at his cottage, and not in a sterile hospital, as he could not take any more pain.

He said Mr Anderson's illness was not life-threatening, which meant he was facing the rest of his life, perhaps another 30 or 40 years, with no cure.

He said: ''This man was in constant pain, whether it was in his mind or some physical virus it matters not. The result was he was in constant, unremitting pain and he had the right to choose to die. This wasn't imaginary, it was real pain.''

''The reality was that all she (Anderson) did for him wasn't out of a legal duty of care but she did it out of love, affection and pride for him.''

Mr Worsley said her husband had made two previous suicide attempts when his wife had intervened and called for medical assistance, which must have ''bled her white'' each time.

He said that if Anderson had taken the overdose herself, the jury may not have been surprised.

The court heard when her husband told her he had taken too much morphine, she sat with him as he went into a ''deep sleep''. She did not call a doctor until several hours after he had turned blue.

Mr Worsley told the jury that on the morning of the day he took the overdose, Mr Anderson had been ''reviewing his life'' as he filled in a form detailing his illness to claim disability allowance.

''If anything was going to make you slip into deep, deep depression and in to despair it would be likely that it would be looking at your life over the last eight years, seeing no treatment ever and saying, 'It's just too much, I just can't take any more'.''

The court heard that Anderson told police that, with hindsight, not calling for medical assistance was the ''biggest regret'' of her life.

Mr Worsley said: ''She did what most of us perhaps could not do. She consciously let the one she loved go and put her wishes in second place.

''You may think it was for her own sake that she was saying she wished she had called an ambulance.''

Mr Worsley compared their love for each other with that shown in the funeral scene of the Hugh Grant film Four Weddings and a Funeral, where the W H Auden poem ''Funeral Blues'' was read out.

In the scene, Matthew, played by John Hannah, reads the poem at his lover's funeral.

Mr Worsley read: ''He was my North, my South, my East and West. / My working week and my Sunday rest, / My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song, / I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.''

Mr Worsley told the jury: ''It's for you to set the standards for the public, who you represent, to decide whether her conduct was so bad she is guilty of manslaughter.

''This lady was courageous, devoted and long suffering and, whatever else, not a criminal. You should reach a verdict of not guilty.''

The trial was adjourned until tomorrow, when the judge, Mr Justice Grigson, will begin his summing up.