A WORLD-renowned dog breeder who smothered his wife to death with a pillow has told a jury that she begged him to kill her because she thought she was dying of cancer.

Stephen Parsons says he agreed a suicide pact with his wife Erica, who had run their English Pointer breeding business with him for 50 years and was a former Crufts Dog Show judge and Kennel Club committee member.

Parsons killed his wife with a pillow before cutting his arms with a craft knife and sending messages to friends telling them that he and his wife would both be dead by the time they were found.

He told Exeter Crown Court Erica had pleaded with him to kill her and that he had let her down by not completing his side of the pact. He said he still wants to die and added: “She is at peace and I am in hell.”

He was found semi-conscious by a neighbour who he had asked to come and look after his four horses and 21 dogs at the £1.5 million thatched farmhouse where the couple lived.

Their Pipeaway pointers sold for up to £5,000 a time, were exported and won dog shows all over the world, and are considered one of the best bloodlines for the pedigree.

Parsons, aged 71, and his wife Erica, aged 69, were being pursued by creditors over massive debts and he said his wife was convinced that she was dying of cancer and only had a short time to live.

He killed her in the early hours of February 10 last year but waited for more than a day before making his own apparent suicide attempt around noon on February 11.

He had spent the intervening day making arrangements to re-home his dogs and sell his Arabian horses.

He had asked all those involved to arrive at exactly 1pm, and said he expected to be dead by then.

He is on trial for murder because the prosecution say the suicide pact was a sham and that he killed his wife before making a half-hearted attempt on his own life.

A post mortem examination showed she did not have cancer at all and did not have a lump on her back which he claimed was growing. Her most serious health condition was found to be a prolapse rectum.

There was also no evidence of any illness to her mouth which Parsons claimed had left her barely able to swallow and required her to live on a diet of what he called mush.

The prosecution say there is no evidence other than Parsons’ own account that Erica planned or intended to take her own life and that she had been making plans for the 2023 Crufts Show the following month just hours before she died.

Parsons, of Cadditon Farm at Bondleigh, near North Tawton, denies murder but has admitted manslaughter, either by reason of a failed suicide pact or through diminished responsibility.

He told the jury he and Erica moved to Devon in the early 2000s from Mark, near Bridgwater, Somerset, where they had run their kennels and stables for many years, building up the reputation of their pointers.

He said that by 2023 they were in serious financial trouble and that Erica refused to downsize or take out an equity release, meaning he had to fend off creditors.

She had also become disillusioned with the dog show world, which she believed had become cliquish and corrupt.

He said they had been together since they were 15 and had a very private marriage in which they had chosen not to have children. They had devoted their lives to their dogs and horses.

He said: “Our marriage really was very good. We adored each other. We were very close. I always tried to protect her from everything. I did all I could do to protect her but she had become more insular and disillusioned with the dog world.”

He said she was convinced that she was dying of cancer and that a lump on her back was growing. She refused to see a doctor because she had lost faith in the medical profession when her own father had died from cancer.

Parsons said Erica had a problem with swallowing which had been getting worse for several years and had lost weight and started drinking large amounts of gin.

He said: “It just got worse and she said to me ‘you can just put a pillow over my head when I am drunk’.”

Describing the night he killed her, he said: “It was a very difficult evening. She was struggling with everything and I helped her upstairs in the early hours. She went off to sleep quite quickly.

“She had been saying how awful her life was and she could not go on and we should go together. She was not able to take pills because she could not swallow. She kept asking me and pleading with me to help her.

“When I cut my arms I thought I would bleed out with the help of the tablets I had taken. I wanted to die, the same as I do now.

“I promised to go with her and I let her down. I have been a failure. I did not achieve my side of it. The decision had been our decision for both of us to go together.

“It was not a case of overprotecting her. It was because she kept on about wanting help. She went on and on and on. She had no will to live. She had lost the will to live. She kept on about wanting to die until I agreed we would both go.

“There is no way I want to be here without her. That was not my decision. In the end I failed her by not doing it. She is at peace and I am in hell.”

Under cross examination, he said his wife had not agreed an exact time when he would initiate the suicide pact by killing her but believed she was drunk and in deep sleep when he did so.

He denied breaking three of her ribs by kneeling on her as he pushed a pillow down onto her face and said that he hugged her after she died.

Asked if he regretted his actions, he said: “I do not regret that she is at peace but I regret 24 hours-a-day that I failed to go with her. I failed her because I promised we would go together.”

The trial continues.