Daughter who suffocated dad with pillow to end his cancer agony is spared jail

A daughter who suffocated her terminally-ill 88-year-old father with a pillow as an act of mercy has been spared

Dr Lisa Davenport denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter following the death of her cancer-stricken father Barrie Davenport on November 21, last year, and was released on conditional bail until today's sentencing. She has now been given a two-year prison sentence suspended for two years by a judge at who said: “I recognise I have taken a merciful course.”

The 55 year old smothered Barrie Davenport, 88, with a pillow at his home in Banbury, Oxfordshire in October 2022. The court heard Mr Davenport had been suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer and was in a great deal of pain during his final few hours of life.

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John Price KC, prosecuting, said that staff at Mr Davenport’s retirement complex and a doctor did not suspect foul play because his death was expected to be imminent. “When the doctor certified his death at 10pm on October 17 it was believed to be due to natural causes,” he said.

“But that was not so, Mr Davenport had been in fact unlawfully killed by his daughter, this defendant Lisa Davenport. At about 7pm she had smothered her father with a pillow as he lay in his bed.”

Mr Price said Davenport confessed an hour later to a neighbour and friend of her father about what she had done and asked her not to say anything. The following morning Davenport, who by this point was visibly drunk, also confessed to the manager of the retirement complex who then reported it to the police.

“Were it not for those confessions subsequently saying he had been unlawfully killed, it would have not been discovered,” Mr Price said. “The evidence suggests that following his terminal diagnosis this defendant was a devoted carer of her father as his health declined.

“It is accurate to say that no one could have done more for a clearly dying parent than she did.” The court heard that Mr Davenport was in a great deal of discomfort and there were difficulties in getting his pain management under control.

“This defendant was distressed by how her father appeared,” Mr Price said. “She asked for him to receive more pain relief. This background might explain why a devoted daughter did what she did to her father that evening.

“The prosecution has always accepted that had there been a trial, it would have been the prosecution’s case that the motivation was clearly done in a ‘belief by the offender that it was an act of mercy’. This phrase is accurately describing her motivation for doing what she did.”

After killing her father, Davenport confessed to a friend of his, Angela Pountney. Miss Pountney told police: “Lisa said, ‘I smothered him’. I was shocked and could not say anything, and said, ‘Please don’t tell me’. She said, ‘I smothered him’. She said, ‘You must not tell anybody and the family must not know because I will be sent to prison’.”