Loving husband is charged with murder over his wife's suicide bid

Lund: 'A loyal husband to a complex wife'

A retired accountant murdered his wife when her suicide attempt went wrong, a jury was told.

Frank Lund had climbed into bed with Patricia and watched as she swallowed 80 paracetamol tablets.

But when it became clear that the overdose was not fatal and she started to be sick, he pulled a plastic bag over her head and smothered her with a pillow, holding her in his arms until she died, the court heard.

Mrs Lund, 65, who had a debilitating bowel disorder but was not terminally ill, had told her husband of 32 years that she was determined to end her life.

When she decided "the day had come", he went out to buy painkillers. He also collected a farewell bouquet of roses for her, and cards from himself and their pets.

Lund, 58, who the prosecution conceded was a loving husband, denied murder at Liverpool Crown Court.

After the death on September 1 last year, the jury was told, he changed the sheets and dressed his wife in clean clothes before calling her two grown-up sons to tell them she had killed herself.

Finally, around four hours later, he telephoned the police.

When paramedics arrived he confessed he had helped his wife to die, saying: "I know I have committed a crime."

Gordon Cole QC, prosecuting, said that although Mrs Lund had decided to take her own life she did not in fact commit suicide.

"Mrs Lund did not die by her own hand," he said.

"Her death was caused by the deliberate act of the defendant suffocating her with a plastic bag and pillow.

"Whether she would have come round and asked for help or to seek medical assistance, we will never know, but the defendant decided to do something which in law amounts to the offence of murder."

Mr Cole said the prosecution did not dispute that Lund was a devoted husband but that, by law, he was also a murderer.

He said: "This was a very sad case. It was a case in which Patricia Lund, it seems, had made the decision to take her own life.

"But it is a case in which we say that the defendant committed the offence of murder."

The jury was told that in October 2005 Mrs Lund was diagnosed with a digestive problem caused by the inflammation of the large bowel.

Although doctors said the condition would clear up in 18 months, Mrs Lund found it very embarrassing and often talked of taking her own life.

Initially, this caused arguments between the couple, who lived in a smart £350,000 detached home close to the seafront in New Brighton, Merseyside.

Mrs Lund insisted it was her right to choose and made her husband promise she would die in her own bed.

She had a history of depression and had tried to commit suicide by overdose five times.

The court heard that Mrs Lund was 36 when she lost her first husband, a cerebral palsy sufferer who was the father of her two sons.

She met Lund a year later and he raised the children as his own.

One of them, Stephen Olive, 44, from Bradford, told the jury that Lund was "a fantastic father to me in all but name".

He said Lund had remained loyal and faithful to his "complex" mother throughout her mental difficulties.

His wife, Ann, told the court that the Lunds, who spent most of their lives in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, before moving to Merseyside in 2002, were a devoted couple.

"They were still passionately in love," Mrs Olive said.

"They would have rows and wonderful makings-up. They had a very devoted relationship.

"They did everything together and were very much in love." The trial continues.