‘Daddy, I’m your little girl, you can’t leave me’ – British woman begged her father not to kill himself after he suffocated her terminally-ill mother at their Cyprus home: Murder trial hears tragic video call
- Lesley Hunter begged her father David Hunter, 75, not to kill himself in a harrowing video call made moments after he killed her terminally ill mother
- Hunter is seen telling Hunter ‘you can’t leave me’ from her Norwich home 2,500 miles away from the British pensioner’s retirement villa in Cyprus
- Hunter is accused of murdering wife Janice, 74, who had terminal leukaemia
A daughter begged her father not to kill himself in a harrowing video call made moments after he had suffocated her terminally-ill mother.
Lesley Hunter is seen telling David Hunter, 75, ‘you can’t leave me’ from her Norwich home 2,500 miles away from the British pensioner’s retirement villa in Cyprus.
She screams down the phone: ‘Daddy remember how you walked me down the aisle and you said I was beautiful. I’m your girl. I’m your girl. You can’t leave me.
‘Daddy please, please daddy I beg you.’
Lesley Hunter (right) is seen telling David Hunter, 75, ‘you can’t leave me’ from her Norwich home 2,500 miles away from the British pensioner’s retirement villa in Cyprus (left)
Mr Hunter (pictured outside court in Pathos on 17 January) is accused of murdering wife Janice, 74, who had been suffering from terminal leukaemia at their retirement home in Cyprus.
Lesley: ‘Daddy, daddy, just concentrate on me. Daddy concentrate on me. Daddy, forget about everybody else. Forget about everything else. Concentrate on me.
‘Not on her. Not anybody else, just me and you, daddy, you love me you know you do. I’m your girl.
‘You’ve always loved me. I’m your girl. I’m your girl, daddy. I’m your little girl.
‘Remember, remember when I was in hospital and you were in the lift when I came round.
‘And Daddy remember how you walked me down the aisle and you said I was beautiful. I’m your girl. I’m your girl. You can’t leave me.
‘Daddy please, please daddy I beg you. Daddy….’ Police officer: ‘Have you taken something David, because we can get someone to help?
‘David we don’t know your address but want to get someone to you…
Lesley: ‘We love you. We don’t care what you’ve done. we don’t care. We just want you safe. we love you so much ‘Daddy, daddy, we love you, love, we love you so much, so much, all I want is you safe. Daddy. Daddy.’
Mr Hunter is seen slumped in a chair and barely conscious as his daughter says: ‘Daddy, daddy, just concentrate on me. Daddy concentrate on me.
‘Daddy, forget about everybody else. Forget about everything else. Concentrate on me.
‘Not on her. Not anybody else, just me and you, daddy, you love me you know you do. I’m your girl.
‘You’ve always loved me. I’m your girl. I’m your girl, daddy. I’m your little girl.’
Mr Hunter is accused of murdering wife Janice, 74, who had been suffering from terminal leukaemia at their retirement home in Cyprus. He is being tried in the city of Paphos on the island.
After suffocating her he called his brother, William, in the UK to confess to killing his wife – before saying he was going to take his own life with a drugs and alcohol overdose.
William alerted the police who dashed to Lesley’s Norfolk home and advised her to video call her father on December 18, 2021. It is not clear from the footage whether Mr Hunter had already taken the concoction or was just in shock.
It shows a British police officer say: ‘Have you taken something David, because we can get someone to help?’
The 50-year-old daughter then says: ‘We love you. We don’t care what you’ve done. we don’t care. We just want you safe. We love you so much
‘Daddy, daddy, we love you, love, we love you so much, so much, all I want is you safe. Daddy. Daddy.’
Mr Hunter appeared emotional as the footage was played out on the day he gave evidence for the first time since he was arrested over 12 months ago.
It had appeared that a plea bargain would be reached last month that would see the British grandfather released after admitting the lesser charge of manslaughter. But in an apparent 11th hour change the prosecution pushed ahead with pre-meditated murder.
The defence is now trying to argue that five statements Mr Hunter gave to police are inadmissible because he hadn’t been physiologically assessed or offered a lawyer.
They played the video to demonstrate how Mr Hunter was ‘in a state of shock and doesn’t understand what is going on’ and should never have been made to sign police statements.
Mr Hunter burst into tears as the prosecution made him look at a photo of his dead wife slumped in her chair from the night she died. It was the first time he had seen the image.
The Briton repeatedly told them that he ‘can’t remember’ telling officers that he had killed her with his hands to stop her suffering from leukaemia.
The news left Mr Hunter’s daughter Lesley, left, who lives in Norwich, in tears as she told MailOnline: ‘I’m just shocked and stunned. We are devastated and just don’t know how this has happened.’ Pictured with her parents
The prosecutor read from one of Mr Hunter’s police statements where he described suffocating his wife ‘for about ten or 15 minutes’.
It read: ‘While I was trying to save her by killing her, Janice was resisting and she was holding my hands.’
But the statement was written by a Greek officer on Mr Hunter’s behalf, and the British pensioner insisted yesterday that his wife did not resist.
He told prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou that as he suffocated her Mrs Hunter ‘was just lying there’. He said: ‘I know I would never hurt my wife. When I lifted my hands there were no scratches.’
In another passage, the statement reads: ‘I knew what I did to Janice was wrong but now Janice is better and she rests in peace.’
Once more Mr Hunter insisted he did not remember saying any of this. He told the court: ‘I’m a Christian. I believe in God and the Holy Bible and what I said is the truth – I don’t remember.’
Asked what he recalled from when the police and medics arrived, Mr Hunter described it as ‘like a dream’ and said he felt like he was ‘trapped in a tunnel’.
David Hunter, 75, originally from Northumberland, was accused of murdering his wife of 46 years, Janice, at their home in Paphos, in December 2021
David Hunter and his wife Janice on their wedding day
He said he was seeing ‘double’ when he was loaded into the ambulance where ‘instead of two lights there was four’.
He was only assessed by psychologist Katerina Stylianidor on December 21 – three days after the murder and after he signed all of the documents.
Ms Stylianidor agreed with the prosecution that it would have been ‘better’ if he had been psychologically assessed before giving police statements.
Speaking outside court, Mr Hunter said: ‘I never would have killed her in a million years. She didn’t ask me, she begged me. The last five weeks she was begging me.
‘She didn’t resist. Because of the cancer she couldn’t even lift her hands.’
Michael Polak, of Justice Abroad which is representing Mr Hunter, said after the hearing: ‘It is remarkable that the police interviewed him without any psychological assessment of him.
‘There is no way that if this case had been in the UK or England that he would have been interviewed in those circumstances. Police would have done a psychological assessment to make sure that he was OK and to make sure that the evidence was reliable.
‘The fact that he didn’t have a lawyer or interpretation mean that those statements taken by the police should be excluded from the case.’
The case has dragged on for so long that Justice Abroad has drained all the money initially raised to fight the case. Mr Hunter’s pension has been cut since he was arrested and he was forced to sell his home and most of his possessions to fund Mrs Hunter’s medical bills.
The case was adjourned until next Thursday.
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