Susanne Wilson, walked free from Glasgow High Court, despite smothering her husband Henry to death
A former Labour councillor smothered her husband of 50 years to death after child abuse allegations and chronic heart disease ‘left him wanting to die’.
Susanne Wilson, 73, suffocated 70-year-old Henry Wilson with a cushion after he had taken a cocktail of pills at their home in Troon, Ayrshire.
However, she avoided jail after a judge told her to ‘get on with her life’.
The former nurse was admonished by judge Lady Rae at the High Court in Glasgow, over the mental health problems she had at the time.
Lady Rae told her: ‘This was a very tragic case. There are exceptional circumstances and punishment would not be in the interests of justice.
‘The main reason was your mental health at the time of the death of your husband.
‘There is no reason to suggest that you are any risk whatsoever to the public. You are therefore admonished and dismissed. I hope you get on with the rest of your life.’
Mrs Wilson had originally faced a murder charge but later admitted a lesser charge of culpable homicide.
Prosecutors accepted the plea on the basis of her ‘diminished responsibility’ at the time because of the strain she was under.
Mr Wilson was the carer for her housebound husband at their home in Ayr.
She was struggling to cope with the abuse allegations against him and killed him on September 3, 2016 – shortly after he spoke to one of his accusers. The court heard that Mr Wilson, a retired Butlins shop manager, had previously tried to commit suicide.
He and his wife – a Labour councillor in Troon, Ayrshire, in the late 1990s – had been married for 50 years and had three children, although their eldest son, Jonathan, died in 2001 after a battle with cancer.
Child abuse allegations and chronic heart disease had left Henry Wilson ‘wanting to die’, the court heard
Mrs Wilson first became aware of allegations that her husband had sexually abused children in September 2015.
Prosecutor Bill McVicar said: ‘Mrs Wilson accepted the accusations against her husband were true but continued to live in the same house to provide constant care.’
Other people who assisted in her husband’s care stopped visiting over the allegations.
On the day of his death, Mr Wilson asked his wife to contact one of his accusers. They spoke on the phone and this caused Mrs Wilson ‘anxiety’.
After admonishing her at Glasgow High Court, Judge Lady Rae told Mrs Wilson to ‘get on with her life’
After the call, she was ‘very angry’ and hit her husband with a plastic jug, which left him bleeding.
Mr Wilson then spoke about using drugs to end his life. His wife left out medication she had been prescribed and went to visit a neighbour.
When she returned, she saw he had taken some of it and was struggling to breathe.
She helped him to bed but when his breathing got worse he asked her to ‘help me’.
Mr McVicar said: ‘She took that as a request that she should help him to die.
‘She describes feeling only compassion for him and thinking that this had to stop. She then smothered him by placing a cushion over his face and holding it there with some degree of force, restricting his breathing until he died.’
Mrs Wilson then dialled 999 and confessed to police. The court heard she was suffering from depression at the time.
Gordon Jackson, QC, defending, said Mrs Wilson had returned home that evening and found her husband in a ‘very, very bad way’.
Mr Jackson added: ‘He said, “Sue, help me”, and Mrs Wilson told me “at that point I knew what he wanted me to do and I did that”. She now finds it quite horrifying as she has got a bit better mentally.’
Mr Jackson said Mrs Wilson planned to volunteer at a hospital which helped her with her mental health, teaching embroidery to patients.
She made no comment as she left court.