Doctor jailed for killing his terminally ill mother

Chris Simpson, the 55-year-old Auckland doctor who killed his terminally ill mother at her Howick home last year, has been jailed for three years.

Simpson pleaded not guilty on grounds of insanity, but was convicted of manslaughter last month by a jury in the High Court.

Marjorie Simpson, aged 82, was in the last, painful throes of dying from bowel cancer. She was largely confined to her bed and hooked to a morphine pump.

Her family, four sons and their partners, had drawn up a care roster for her final days. But Chris Simpson refused to be included.

To the prosecution, that signalled a callous disregard for his mother's suffering. To the defence, it was a sign he could not bear to see his beloved mother dying.

Early last year, Chris Simpson returned from working as a doctor in Australia to set up a men's health clinic in Remuera, tapping into the growing trend for men to take their health, especially their sexual health, seriously.

He had apparently discussed suicide with his mother, and he told police that at some point through her pain, she had pleaded with him to do something.

Finally, on the night of Tuesday, October 3 last year, Chris Simpson did.

Deszena Christensen, the de facto partner of brother Mel Simpson, had taken over Marjorie's fulltime care and was at the house that night.

She wasn't expecting to see Chris, and was surprised when he arrived, medical bag in hand.

It was the beginning of a bizarre series of events that ended in what one of the brothers described as "bloody mayhem".

It began with him injecting his mother with a powerful cocktail of drugs that essentially knocked her out, but, perhaps alarmingly for Simpson, did not appear to be working fast enough to kill her.

Simpson, who according to the Crown had already drunk a bottle of wine that day and was now drinking brandy, became more strange and abusive and was trying to take photographs and appliances out of the house. Ms Christensen was scared.

She saw him going into his mother's bedroom, carrying a second syringe. He stripped the blankets off the bed, and flung open the windows, complaining the room smelled like death.

He phoned Mel, telling him to, "Come now. Mumsie's on the brink of death".

Mel arrived and went into his mother's room, where he found Chris lying on top of her, pressing a pillow over her face.

Chris turned to his shocked brother and yelled, "Shut up and give us a hand" and told him to go and get some plastic bags.

Mel started to comply. Then, realising why Chris wanted the bags, he dropped them in the hallway and retreated, apparently emotionally wrecked.

Deszena Christensen eventually managed to force her way into the bedroom, finding Simpson strangling his mother with the straps of her morphine bag.

The ambulance and police were called as part of Simpson's elaborate attempts to cover up what he had done, the Crown claimed. He offered the ambulance officers $40 to go away.

Simpson was so incoherent in the interview that police had difficulty taking notes. He lay on the floor most of the time, with his feet in the air.

And it was not until the pathology reports came back, showing the amount of drugs he had injected into his mother and the cause of death as strangulation that Chris Simpson charged with murder.