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Barrington My Lord, over a hundred were the words mentioned in dispatches by the fleet commander. Now I’d like to begin, Mr Sherwood, with your relationship with your wife. How long were you married?
Sherwood Just over seventeen years.
Barrington And was your marriage a happy one?
Sherwood I adored Elizabeth; no one will ever be able to replace her.
Barrington When was it that you first discovered your wife had a heart problem?
Sherwood The first hint came in 1997, when Elizabeth complained of loss of breath, and of feeling pains in her chest, and left arm. These are the classic signs of a minor heart attack, so I took her into St George’s and carried out some routine tests.
Barrington And what did those tests reveal?
Sherwood That her heartbeat was irregular and she was suffering from an arrhythmia.
Barrington Did you consider this curable at the time?
Sherwood Oh, yes, I deal with this sort of problem every day, and as long as a patient is willing to be disciplined with their diet, sensible about taking exercise and, if it applies, give up smoking, then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t live to an old age.
Barrington So what did you do next?
Sherwood I put her on a programme of medication that was approved by her GP and confirmed by the brightest young specialist on my staff.
Barrington And once she had begun that programme, did her health start to improve?
Sherwood No, she continued to complain about loss of breath and feeling tired, which caused me to doubt my own diagnosis.
Barrington So what did you do about it?
Sherwood I got in touch with Sir Magdi Yacoub at the Brompton Hospital. He’s the leading authority in my field and I was keen to seek a second opinion.
Barring
ton And what was his judgement?
Sherwood He was puzzled. He could find no fault with my diagnosis and suggested that Elizabeth be put on a special fat-free diet.
Barrington And did you at last see some improvement?
Sherwood No, her health continued to deteriorate and during the last few months I couldn’t get her to leave the flat, even to go for a short walk.
Barrington And she finally collapsed on the evening of March the twenty-first 1999, and was taken into hospital, where she died of cardiac arrest a few hours later.
Sherwood (bows his head) Yes and I’ll never forgive myself for not being by her side.
Barrington Looking back over that last year, do you think you could have done any more?
Sherwood I ask myself the same question a hundred times every day, and I think I can honestly say that I did everything in my power to prolong Elizabeth’s life.
Barrington But the Crown would have us believe that over a period of three months, you instructed Ms Mitchell to pick up several ampoules of Potassium Chloride from a chemist in Wellingborough for the sole purpose of poisoning your wife.
Sherwood The Crown only has Ms Mitchell’s word for that.
Barrington But your signature is on all the prescriptions.
Sherwood And hundreds of others like it. Sir James, but it’s the first time I’ve been arrested and charged with murder.
Barrington Then why did you ask her to have them made up in Wellingborough?
