Daughter who suffocated dad with pillow to end his terrible cancer pain is spared jail
11 April 2025, 12:45
A woman who killed her terminally-ill father has been allowed to walk free from court with a two-year suspended sentence by a judge who told her: “I recognise I have taken a merciful course.”
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Dr Lisa Davenport, 55, smothered Barrie Davenport, 88, with a pillow at his home in Banbury, Oxfordshire in October 2022.
Oxford Crown 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.
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."
