A devoted husband who strangled his wife because he could not cope with her descent into dementia has been jailed.

Malcolm Beardon, aged 79, made a pact with his wife Margaret, aged 78, that they would always care for each other and never allow them to go into a home.

The retired bus driver could not cope as she lost her memory and snapped after she ceased being able to recognise him.

He strangled her on the bed at the home where they had lived together for 50 years after she mistook him for a stranger and accused him of being a “dirty old man” when he asked her to get undressed for bed.

He was jailed for 12 months yesterday after a judge said he had a duty to uphold the sanctity of human life.

His son had sent a letter begging the judge to free him pleading: “I have lost my mother, I don’t want to lose my father too.” The family wept in the public gallery as he was jailed.

Beardon, of Churchfields in Wellington, Somerset, admitted manslaughter due to loss of control and was jailed for 12 months by Judge Graham Cottle at Exeter Crown Court.

The judge told him: “This case is unique and presents an agonising sentencing exercise and one which is likely to leave opinion divided.

“You had been married for 58 years, you met when you were 16 and it was a marriage characterised by mutual and deep devotion during which you brought up two children. In the latter years of her life she developed senile dementia and her condition deteriorated slowly to the extent where caring for her had become increasingly difficult.

“You spurned offers of help and the tragic outcome calls into question the wisdom of that decision. You are a proud man and were too proud to accept that you could no longer cope. On the day she died things were particularly difficult.

“In your words, you snapped and you strangled her to death. I am sure that what you did will haunt you for the rest of your days.

Jailing Beardon, the judge added: “This was not a mercy killing nor was it close to an assisted suicide. It was the taking of a life by a man who had temporarily lost his self control of the wife he had loved for many years.

“The very difficult, challenging and heartbreaking circumstances in which you found yourself are replicated in many households where people are caring for very sick partners or close relatives.

“To describe this case as tragic is a significant understatement but the principle of the sanctity of human life would be undermined if the prison sentence was suspended.”