Jurors have heard phone calls made by a husband seeking medical help for his unresponsive wife who he claimed was trying to starve herself.
Robert Morgan, 61, and 52-year-old David Holyoak are on trial at Carlisle Crown Court.
They deny manslaughter, the prosecution alleging that they unlawfully killed their respective wife and mum, 71-year-old Dorothy Morgan, by gross negligence.
As evidence began this morning, a jury of seven men and five women heard two phones made by the defendant Morgan on the morning of January 25 2021, from the home all three shared in Calder Avenue, Whitehaven.
“I’ve got a problem with the wife,” Morgan first told a Cumbria Health on Call handler. “She has literally tried to starve herself to death over the last couple of months. She has not allowed me to get in touch with any health professionals.”
Morgan dialled 999 several minutes later. “The wife has been refusing to get any kind of medical help for months,” said Morgan.
“She stopped eating. She stopped drinking. She can barely sit up now. I am not supporting behaviour like this any more. It has gone too far.”
Chest compressions were carried out on Mrs Morgan at the direction of the operator during that second call. Paramedics then arrived and Mrs Morgan was taken to Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital where she was found to be clinically dehydrated and severely malnourished.
She died 10 days later, on February 4 2021.
It is alleged by the prosecution that Morgan and Holyoak, both of Calder Avenue, Whitehaven, stood by, allowed and effectively watched as their wife and mother was left to die in her own filth.
It is further alleged that the pair completely failed to properly take care of her, or at the very least get her some help.
Jurors have heard that, when interviewed by police, the two men insisted that they were following Mrs Morgan’s orders that no help be sought, and that they were simply acting out her final wishes.
The trial continues, and is expected to last around a fortnight.
