THE CARLISLE Crown Court jury hearing the manslaughter trial of the alleged victim’s husband and her son by another man have retired to consider their verdicts.

Robert Christopher Morgan, 61, and David Holyoak, 53, deny  “gross negligence” manslaughter, the charge having been brought following the death in February 2021 of 71-year-old Dorothy Morgan after she was admitted to Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital.

Severely dehydrated and emaciated, she weighed four and a half stones when she died, and had severe bed sores, sepsis and gangrene.

In the weeks before her hospitalisation, she had lived on a settee in the living room, covered in faeces and urine, the court heard.

During the trial, prosecutor Iain Simkin KC told the jury that by the time Robert Morgan called an ambulance on January 25, 2021, Mrs Morgan’s physical condition was such that her death was inevitable.

The two defendants, who lived with Mrs Morgan in Calder Avenue, Whitehaven, have told jurors she had refused to let them seek medical attention.

In his evidence, security worker Morgan said he and his wife had got on well and there was never any issue, but she was “strong-willed,” he told the court.

“When she made her mind up about something she stuck to it,” he said.

Morgan also said his wife “had a thing” about West Cumberland Hospital” and did not want to go in there if she could avoid it. He denied “leaving his wife to die.”

In his evidence, Holyoak said he did not want his mother to die. Under questioning, he accepted he should have done more to help his mother but said he did not acknowledge that she may be dying, saying: “I didn’t want to accept it as being true.”

He added: “We tried to get her to eat. We tried but we couldn’t physically force her to eat if she didn’t want to.” The jury retired to begin deliberating on their verdicts late this morning.