Accused tells of 'adored' wife's trauma

Eva Palairet as a young woman. Photo / Supplied

A man accused of helping his wife of 47 years to commit suicide told a jury yesterday how he had tried everything in his power to make her life as comfortable and pleasant as possible.

Michael Palairet, 71, said in the High Court at Wellington: "I wanted to have her around. I never stopped loving, admiring, adoring her."

The retired former senior Defence Force man gave evidence in his own defence, detailing the ups and downs of his years with Eva, who kept having nightmares of her childhood days in Vienna during World War II with her Hungarian refugee parents.

"She was traumatised by her experience."

Her life improved when she, her parents and her brother emigrated to Australia.

The couple met in their early 20s when both were transferred to Fiji in their jobs. It was the first love for each of them. They married, started a family and moved around New Zealand and abroad on his air force postings.

Sadly, Palairet said, he had spent the last 15 years, up until April 13 last year when his 68-year-old wife died, "knowing she did not want to be around".

Glamorous, with movie-star looks, social, and used to being the centre of attention, the volatile Eva Palairet looked forward to becoming the "matriarch" of her family of four children and several grandchildren.

Their adult offspring left home and went overseas, while their increasingly reclusive mother endured a long and losing battle with depression and alcohol.

She gained weight - possibly due partly to an undiagnosed inactive thyroid condition - and became obsessed with how she looked, the accused said. Three times she attempted suicide but despite medication, counselling and psychiatric care remained troubled.

Eva believed her beauty had gone and became paranoid about her looks. She rarely went out and did not want people to see her, including her children when they wanted to visit.

Palairet said his wife could drink three bottles of wine in a day. "She would say it wasn't the wine she liked, but the feeling it gave her."

To counter her talk of dying, he said he spent tens of thousands of dollars on improvements to their Tawa house, providing her with the pleasure of redecorating and buying new things.

"She used to say 'my home is my castle' and 'this is my heaven on earth'," he recalled.

"I felt it was worth investing in, giving her the kind of things she enjoyed."

She had said she wanted to take her own life if anything happened to him and Palairet admitted looking up the details she wanted, and making two purchases for if she ever needed them.

He and other family members had arrived home from Auckland after attending his 98-year-old father's funeral when Palairet found his wife unconscious. She died after being taken off life-support three days later.

The accused said he could not relate to the reason anyone would take their own life or to "the little value people put on themselves". "It cuts to the heart."