“By all accounts you were devoted to each other, described by others as ‘joined at the hip’,” Judge Simon said.
“You and Margaret both worked for a living and in retirement lived in Dunstable without financial or other worry.”
Judge Simon had to consider whether Worby believed he had made a suicide pact with Mrs Worby – and what his level of responsibility for her death was.
The judge concluded that evidence showed Worby had genuinely believed there was agreement and his “responsibility” was therefore in the “lower category”.
“[I] am not in a position to make a finding to the criminal standard as to the exact nature of any discussion and/or agreement between yourself and Margaret,” said the judge.
“In the absence of convincing evidence to the contrary, I must pass sentence on the basis that at the very least you genuinely believed that there was an agreement with Margaret.”