This is the moment an elderly man who struck his ill wife with an iron pole in an “act of mercy” called 999 and told the operator he had killed her.
Lawrence Franks, 84, of Frances Road in Gatley, Stockport, last year admitted hitting Patricia, who had severe dementia, with a pole as she sat in bed.
He then called 999 to confess, a moment which was captured on video and broadcast on BBC1 on Thursday night.
His first words were: “I’ve killed my wife.”
He continued: “She can’t walk, incontinent, and I can’t cope. So I’ve killed her.”
He then asked if the responding police could not use sirens because there was a little girl’s birthday party next door.
He said: “She’s dead, that’s all you need to know.”
The moment had been filmed during the making of Ambulance, a series about the emergency service in the North West of England.
Franks received a two-year suspended prison sentence at Manchester Crown Court.
The trial heard Franks was unable to cope with the worsening condition of his wife, who had requested to never be put in a care home.
Sentencing him, Judge David Stockdale QC said it was a "very sad case" in which Franks had genuinely believed the "spur of the moment act" was "an act of mercy".
