Man, 87, sentenced to six years in psychiatric hospital after shooting wife dead

An 87-year-old man has been sentenced to serve six years in a psychiatric hospital for manslaughter, after shooting dead his wife at a care home.

Ronald King killed his wife Rita, 81, days after Christmas while visiting her at the De la Mer residential home in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex.

During the trial in which King admitted shooting his wife, the court heard that Mrs King suffered from severe dementia which had worsened in the weeks before her death on December 28, 2015.

King, who has only one arm and is wheelchair-bound, had shot his wife in the communal television room at the home.

Paramedics were called but Mrs King was pronounced dead at the scene.

King suffers from Alzheimer's which affects his ability to form judgments, Chelmsford Crown Court heard.
King, of Cedar Close, Walton-on-the-Naze, denied murder at an earlier hearing, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility or by survivor of a suicide pact.
Judge Charles Gratwicke, sentencing, said: "This was from every angle a tragedy."