According to the husband who killed his terminally sick wife in a suicide pact, they had one final drink together before heading to the bottom of the garden to commit suicide.
On Thursday, Graham Mansfield, 73, was found guilty of the manslaughter of his 71-year-old wife Dyanne but was allowed to leave court without being sentenced.
In March of last year, he cut her neck before making a failed attempt on his own life. In an interview at his home in Hale, Greater Manchester, Mr. Mansfield claimed that in October 2020, only a few weeks after they had celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary, his wife was told she had stage four lung cancer.
The suicide pact was brought up for the first time, according to Mr. Mansfield, when they got home from the hospital.
Whether things were “too awful,” Mrs. Mansfield asked her husband if he would be willing to kill her.
‘On one condition,’ he agreed. I told her that I would have to accompany her, Mr. Mansfield remarked.
“I can’t live without you, Dyanne,” I cried.
It actually gave me strength in a funny manner. I was aware that I was also dying. I could concentrate on that.
On New Year’s Eve of 1974, the pair met in their neighbourhood bar in Wythenshawe’s Woodhouse Park, and six years later they were wed.
According to Mr. Mansfield, they had a love and successful marriage and shared a variety of activities, including cycling, gardening, and walking.
Dyanne was a nice person, he remarked.
She was everything to me. No one else was necessary for us.
We simply required one another. Together, we lived a lovely life.
But by March of last year, Mrs. Mansfield had had enough and couldn’t endure any more suffering, telling her husband.
In an effort to find a “peaceful” and “suitable” location to carry out the pact on March 22, they drove to Buxton and Macclesfield.
However, they ultimately opted to utilise their garden the next day.
The retired luggage handler from Manchester Airport, Mr. Mansfield, has already started putting things together.
He had emptied the freezer, cleaned the house, and cancelled the delivery of the papers, milk, and window cleaner.
They “cried and told each other how much we loved each other” on their final night together.
The following day at around 5 o’clock, Mrs. Mansfield drank a glass of red wine, and Mr. Mansfield drank a beer can and a scotch and lemonade.
They both put on their jackets because it was chilly and proceeded to the bottom of the garden where two chairs were set up next to one another after Mr. Mansfield had locked the door of the residence on Canterbury Road.
He asked his wife, “Are you ready?” She answered, “Yes, but I won’t make a sound.”
Then, while still behind the chair she was sitting in, he used a Stanley knife to slit her throat.
Mr. Mansfield sobbed as he sat watching the same garden, remembering that terrible incident. It went against every bone in my body, he claimed.
I sprinted around to the front of the seat. What have I done, I asked? I sat next to her, gave her my arm, and told her I loved her.
Then Mr. Mansfield attempted suicide, but he fainted and awoke the following morning in the kitchen.
He was discovered at the couple’s house on the morning of March 24 of last year, lying in a pool of blood.
After calling 999 and telling the operator he had killed his wife of 40 years at 9 o’clock the day before and then attempted suicide, police and paramedics arrived at the semi-detached home, according to Mr. Mansfield.
Mansfield received surgery for injuries to his neck and both wrists after being detained on murder suspicion at the scene.
At the bottom of their garden, Mrs. Mansfield, a retired import/export clerk, was discovered slouched on a chair.
We have decided to take our own life, said the note, which was left nearby and addressed to the police.
After being initially accused of murder, Mr. Mansfield pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Justice Goose, the judge at Manchester Crown Court, instructed the jury that in order to convict Mr. Mansfield of murder, the they had to be satisfied that he used unlawful force to kill his wife and that he had done so on purpose.
However, if they thought it was “more likely than not” that the suicide pact was a shared agreement between the couple, to which Mrs. Mansfield had voluntarily consented, and that her husband had actually attempted suicide, the case may be lowered to manslaughter.
After a four-day trial, the unanimous conviction was reached by the jury in 90 minutes.
After stating that he was “fully satisfied” that Mr. Mansfield had behaved out of “love” and “compassion” toward his spouse, the judge gave him a two-year suspended prison sentence.
However, Mr. Mansfield doesn’t think the matter should have gone to court in the first place, despite the fact that he admits to feeling “elation” when the punishment was handed down.
He has advocated for the legalisation of assisted suicide in the UK and stated that they would have contemplated travelling to Dignitas in Switzerland if the Covid lockdown hadn’t prevented it.
We haven’t done anything wrong, according to Mr. Mansfield. We didn’t require anyone else’s consent.
It was a choice we made. I murdered her out of love.
What’s wrong with a person declaring they don’t want to live any longer if they are terminally ill and experiencing pain? [Euthanasia] is a moral and practical course of action.
We were forced to use this barbarous strategy because of the legislation.