News in brief
A 74-year-old man convicted of strangling his wife has been banned from leaving his home to go to the pub instead of receiving a custodial sentence. Edward Flaherty was convicted of culpable homicide after he killed his wife when she refused to give him money to go drinking. The defendant, who suffers from dementia, is to be tagged and banned from leaving his home under the terms of a year-long restriction of liberty order. At Glasgow High Court, Lord Matthews said that because of the defendant’s condition, a custodial sentence would be little more than a token gesture and that the order was therefore a “more meaningful disposal than a prison sentence”. Flaherty’s lawyer said the reports prepared for the couts showed a man in significant physical and mental decline: “There is a clear diagnosis of dementia setting in,” he added.
