Lisa Davenport, from Banbury, Oxon., sparked a public outcry after she walked free from court. She pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of her 88-year-old father, Barrie Davenport. Those were the last hours of his life, as he fought against terrible terminal pancreatic cancer. He suffered dearly with great pain throughout this miserable period.
In October 2020, anticipating the start of the trial day, Lisa Davenport took a dramatic step. She suffocated her daddy with a pillow, believing she was showing love by preventing his pain. In the wake of the act, she admitted what she had done to a neighbor and friend of her father, Angela Pountney. At this point, Davenport asked that Pountney not divulge the confession to anyone. She was worried that if her family found out she would be doomed to jail.
After confessing to Pountney, Lisa Davenport confessed to the manager of the retirement compound. She was an open book about her dad’s plight. The bowling alley manager then notified law enforcement about the incident, resulting in Davenport’s arrest and manslaughter charges.
Through the course of the trial, Davenport entered a guilty plea to the manslaughter charges. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) bill was the framework used to analyze the case. This prompted a firestorm of debate over the ethics of what she had done. Judge Linden recognized that her motives were driven by a profound wish to reduce her father’s pain. As his death neared, her compassion guided her moral compass.
“This defendant was distressed by how her father appeared. She asked for him to receive more pain relief. This background might explain why a devoted daughter did what she did to her father that evening.” – John Price KC
In a rare outcome, Judge Linden imposed on Lisa Davenport a two-year suspended prison sentence. The judge’s sign of understanding for the nontraditional nature of the present case. I know I have been very merciful,” he wrote in defense. I am sentencing you to do so because of the mitigating features of your case, which in my highly unusual judgment are exceptional.”
John Price KC, for Davenport, focused on what drove her. He claimed that she thought she was doing it from kindness. He knew full well that given a trial, she would be exposed for the fraud that she truly is. They were rooted in compassion, not malice.
“It is accurate to say that no one could have done more for a clearly dying parent than she did.” – John Price KC
Even though the event was incredibly tragic, community reactions have been on both extremes of the wide spectrum. Some view Lisa Davenport’s actions as understandable in light of her father’s suffering, while others raise concerns about the ethical ramifications of such decisions.
It’s worth noting that the prosecution, too, understood the complexity of the case. They maintained that had the case gone to trial, at most, they would have made the case that she had a genuine intent to alleviate her father’s pain.
“Were it not for those confessions subsequently saying he had been unlawfully killed, it would have not been discovered.” – John Price KC
Ethical and legal considerations regarding end-of-life care are the subject of active discussion. Lisa Davenport’s story is a cautionary tale about the vulnerable line separating compassion for vulnerable communities from humanitarian criminalization. Her story brings to the forefront the important, persistent conversations around how we care for people living with terminal illness and the people who care for them.