R v Graham Mansfield
Richard Orme defended a pensioner who was charged with murder of his terminally ill wife. Graham Mansfield claimed to have acted after making a suicide pact following his wife’s terminal cancer diagnosis. He claimed his wife had asked him to take her life “when things get bad for me” and he had agreed on the condition that he end his own life also. Mansfield pleaded not guilty to murder and manslaughter on the grounds his actions were “undertaken through duress of circumstances”.
Following Richard Orme’s argument that in the last two years since the terminal diagnosis of his wife, Mansfield “has experienced a living hell”, he was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years.
The case received national press coverage including BBC News, ITV News, Sky News and The Guardian as well as significant coverage in the Manchester Evening News.
