An 88-year-old man who tried to kill himself and his wife days before they were to be separated because of her worsening dementia has been spared prison by a judge who granted him mercy. Joseph Sugar injected himself and wife Heather with large doses of his medication on a Saturday night in December 2018 at their Hawthorn East aged care home, in the hope of ending their lives peacefully. Mrs Sugar’s health had deteriorated since she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2013 and she was due to be moved to a specialist ward at an another aged care facility. Mr Sugar woke on the Sunday morning to discover his plan was unsuccessful as both he and his wife of more than 50 years were alive, although she was unconscious. He called for help and later that day was charged with attempted murder, and spent three days in hospital under police guard. On Monday Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth granted Mr Sugar mercy by not sending him to jail. He pleaded guilty and prosecutors did not seek a prison term, citing three similar cases where husbands tried to kill their seriously unwell wives out of mercy, and were all spared jail. “A sentence may be both just and merciful,” Justice Hollingworth said as Mr Sugar listened via an online link. “In the circumstances of this case I am moved to exercise mercy and to impose a non-custodial sentence.” Mrs Sugar, Justice Hollingworth said, watched her own parents suffer and die from Alzheimer’s and dementia and had told her family she wanted to be “put out of her misery” to avoid a similar fate. The couple’s son, David, and daughter, Audrey, told the court this month their mother was a loving, intelligent, funny, active and resourceful woman until Alzheimer’s robbed her of her dignity, and that her marriage to their father was a loving, supportive one. The couple spent much of their working lives running hotels in Victoria and NSW. Justice Hollingworth told Mr Sugar, “They are immensely sad that, exhausted from the great stress of caring for Heather yourself, and fearing that you would be separated from her when you moved into the new aged care facility, you decided that the only option was to end things peacefully for both of you.” Mrs Sugar, 75, is now being treated in a specialist ward. Her husband can only visit under supervision, which, Justice Hollingworth said, caused him distress. The judge said Mr Sugar’s guilty plea spared the time and stress of a trial. She acknowledged he had never been in trouble with the police before. Mr Sugar was put on a two-year good behaviour bond. Justice Hollingworth said she would have jailed Mr Sugar for three years had he pleaded not guilty and been found guilty at trial. A conviction was warranted, she said, given the seriousness of the offence and to deter others from similar offending. The Sugar family, the judge said, “just want the nightmare of these criminal proceedings to be over, so that the family can spend what little remaining time they have together”.
