A jury found Graham Mansfield not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
21 July 2022
A pensioner who cut his terminally-ill wife’s throat in a failed suicide pact will walk free from court after being handed a suspended jail sentence.
Graham Mansfield, 73, said he killed cancer-stricken Dyanne Mansfield, 71, in an “act of love” months after she asked him to take her life “when things get bad for me”.
The retired airport baggage handler told Manchester Crown Crown they were the “saddest words he had ever heard” but agreed to his wife’s request as long as he could kill himself too.
On Thursday a jury of 10 men and two women took 90 minutes to find Mansfield not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
Mansfield was later sentenced to two years in jail, suspended for two years.
On the morning of March 24 last year, he was found lying in a pool of blood at the couple’s home in Hale, Greater Manchester, while the body of Mrs Mansfield was slumped in a chair at the bottom of the garden.
Police and paramedics attended the semi-detached property in Canterbury Road after Mansfield dialled 999 and told the operator he had killed his wife of 40 years at 9pm the previous day, before trying to kill himself.
