A FORMER BBC executive who knew that her bedridden husband had taken a lethal drugs overdose made no attempt to prevent his death, a court was told yesterday.

Jill Anderson, who is accused of manslaughter, could have saved the life of her 43-year-old husband Paul simply by dialling 999.

Instead, a jury at Leeds Crown Court was told, she lay down beside him and waited for 15 hours as he fell into a deep sleep before gradually turning blue.

When finally she summoned a doctor to the couple’s home in a small North Yorkshire village, after first cleaning up their cottage, Mr Anderson had been dead for two hours.

David Perry, for the prosecution, said that Mrs Anderson, 49, was the sole carer for her husband, who was virtually confined to his bed and relied on her for such daily tasks as walking, combing his hair and making a cup of tea.

He had a history of hypochondria, had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as ME, was in constant pain and had made two failed suicide attempts in the year before his death.

Brought up in Scotland, Mr Anderson met his future wife, a BBC marketing executive, when he moved to London.

He spoke ten languages and the couple set up a translation business, Mr Perry said.

Mr Anderson had an “abnormal chronic anxiety” about his health, however, and two days before the couple’s wedding, in March 1995, began to suffer flu-like symptoms. He had remained ill “from then until the day he died” in July 2003.

In 1998 the couple moved to the village of Galphay, near Ripon, where doctors could find no physical cause for his complaints of constant pain in his ears and kidneys, a frozen shoulder and irritable bowel syndrome.

Psychiatric treatment was suggested, but the Andersons rejected the diagnosis and cut off all contact with Mr Anderson’s family, who were convinced that he needed the help of a psychiatrist.

The court was told that his third — successful — suicide bid was made on July 17, 2003, when he took an overdose of sleeping tablets and morphine while Mrs Anderson was out shopping.

When she returned home in the evening, her husband told her that he had “taken too much” and fell asleep soon afterwards.

Mrs Anderson told the police later that she believed that he had taken an overdose of tablets, but was pleased that he was able to sleep. She lay on the bed beside him and he woke briefly at 2am, asking for the earpiece to his radio.

When she looked at him again at 5am, she saw that he had turned blue. She stayed with him until he took his last breath at about 9am, then tidied the house before calling a doctor and the emergency services at 11am.

Mrs Anderson later handed the police a note, which read: “I am sorry, I love you, I couldn’t take any more pain. Your Darling Bear.”

Mr Perry told the jury that Mrs Anderson, who denies manslaughter, had owed her husband the same duty of care as a doctor looking after a patient. A poisons expert is expected to tell the court that, had an ambulance been called immediately, Mr Anderson would have recovered.

Mr Perry said: “The prosecution case is that knowing that her husband had deliberately taken an overdose the defendant did nothing to assist him and took no action to summon medical assistance.

“That failure was a breach of the defendant’s duty of care towards her husband. The simple act of calling 999 would have saved his life.”

Mr Perry said that Mr Anderson was isolated and vulnerable, but he was not dying of an incurable illness and his condition was not life-threatening.

“This case is not about the right to die. It is not about whether Paul Anderson should have a right to die. It is not about euthanasia, or the ethical or moral questions raised by the right to die.

“It is about the criminal law. This death was unnecessary. It should not have happened. She should not have permitted it to happen. She had a duty to act and because she did not she now faces this charge.”

The trial continues.

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