Trial of British man who killed wife resumes

The trial for 75-year-old David Hunter, a British man facing murder charges for killing his wife Janice, resumed on Friday at Paphos criminal court.

Hunter has been in prison for over a year with his case postponed time after time, since he suffocated his wife to death in their Tremithousa home in December 2021. Hunter claims Janice asked him to kill her as she was terminally ill with cancer and no longer wanted to suffer. After he killed her, Hunter tried to kill himself.

Thursday’s court hearing is a trial within a trial, to examine whether Hunter’s testimony to police should be thrown out based on his mental state. His defence argue that Hunter testified to police hours after overdosing on pills and alcohol and getting his stomach pumped.

Psychiatrist and head of forensic psychiatry at Warwick University, Dr Vivek Furtado will be an expert witness for the defence.

Hunter’s lawyers Nicoletta Charalambidou, Ritsa Pekri and Michael Polak from Justice Abroad claim no psychiatrist evaluated him and there was no lawyer or interpreter present.

In the last session, his defence shared a video of his daughter Lindsey speaking to her father when she was in the UK, begging him not to kill himself.

The course of events, according to the case so far, is that Hunter first killed his wife and then called his brother to tell him what happened. The brother, in the UK, alerted police.

Officers went to Lindsey’s house and advised her to record everything so it could be used as evidence.

Though Hunter’s defence hoped he could be tried for manslaughter, this was rejected and he is now being tried for murder.

The prosecution argue there is no proof that Hunter’s wife had indeed asked him to take her life, and highlighted fears that this case may set a precedent.