A SEVERELY depressed pensioner subjected her frail husband to a fatal hammer attack when his demanding behaviour became too much for her to take, a court heard.

Retired nurse Mary Milbank Swinburn, in bloodstained nightclothes and still carrying the hammer with which she had dealt her husband 25 blows, then walked barefoot to a nearby doctor's surgery and told staff what she had done.

William Swinburn never recovered from the attack on October 22, 2002.

He died in hospital almost two months later, and Mary Swinburn was later charged with her husband's murder.

But today, the 68-year-old was sensationally granted her freedom after Leeds Crown Court heard how she came to kill her husband of almost 20 years.

The Recorder of Leeds, Judge Norman Jones QC, ordered Swinburn to do three years' community rehabilitation, saying the circumstances of her case were tragic.

The judge said: "In many ways it was only a matter of time before something gave way."

Prosecution counsel James Goss QC said that 77-year-old William Swinburn had once been a healthy businessman with a strong and generous personality.

But after he suffered two strokes, he became a demanding patient, set in his ways and routine.

The court heard he depended on his wife absolutely, but she was a long-term manic depressive and was suffering at the time from a related psychotic condition.

Mr Goss told the court that at the doctor's surgery after the attack, Mary Swinburn had cried: "I have had enough, I have had enough.

"He wouldn't get up as I asked. He told me to ..... off."

Later that day, she told a psychiatrist she had wanted to kill her husband and to die herself. He had her detained for two months in a psychiatric unit.

Swinburn, formerly of Tinley Garth, Kirbymoorside, today pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Psychiatrist Dr Eric Mendelson, called by the defence, said that the tragedy may have been averted if Mary Swinburn had been admitted to hospital when the first signs of her deteriorating health showed in September.

But because she was now over 65, instead of being referred to her normal psychiatrist she was referred to a team of geriatric specialists who did not know the best way to treat her illness.

The judge said she had attacked her husband in "somewhat of a frenzy" but not fractured his skull.

Doctors agreed that at the time she was under pressure at home and suffering from an acute and psychotic stage of her long-standing mental illness.

Her barrister Martin Harrison QC said that since the attack she had suffered from guilt and remorse. She was now stable on medication and had moved to Scunthorpe where her son, a trained nurse, would keep a close eye on her.

He quoted her part-time cleaner, Jill Brown, as saying: "I don't know how she (Mary Swinburn) copes" and how the domestic help had tried to comfort her when she found her agitated and biting her fingers in the kitchen on October 21.

Further coverage of this story will be available in Friday's Evening Press.

Updated: 16:38 Thursday, September 11, 2003