Page 18 Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Facing jail, woman
who killed father
with T V remote
Daily Mail Reporter
A DAUGHTER who killed
her frail father with a tele-
vision remote control has
become the first woman
convicted of causing death
in such a way.
Nicola Townsend, 50, was
found guilty yesterday of
manslaughter.
She hurled the remote control
at Terence Townsend, 78, in a fit
of temper, hitting his head. When
he went to the kitchen to tend to
his wounds, she pushed him over,
breaking several of his ribs.
Mr Townsend called an ambu-
lance after his daughter fled,
Bristol Crown Court was told.
Paramedics arrived at his home
in Bath on December 27, 2017,
and found him sitting in an arm-
chair holding a towel to a wound
on his head.
The pensioner, who suffered
with osteoporosis, a condition
that makes bones more likely to
break, initially said he had fallen
over and hit his head. He was
taken to the Royal United Hos-
pital in Bath but died from pneu-
monia 12 days later.
However, it emerged that
Townsend had thrown the con-
trol at him after she became
‘frustrated and angry’.
Townsend was also found guilty
of intimidation of a witness after
contacting her brother-in-lawDouglas Campbell when she was
charged with manslaughter. She
admitted to Mr Campbell in a
series of voicemails and phone
calls that she had assaulted her
father, her trial heard.
Mr Campbell contacted the
police after her tone became
increasingly alarming.
The messages included threatsThreats: Nicola Townsend
such as, ‘I am going to make sure you
pay for this – people will be looking
at you in disgust’, ‘I am going to
make sure you suffered as I have suf-
fered’ and ‘Everybody will know what
a stupidly arrogant person you are’.
Fiona Elder, prosecuting, said: ‘She
also said “If I do kill myself in the
end you should feel guilty for making
me do it”.
‘It was threats, intimidation and
emotional blackmail. She told him:Townsend because she was annoyed
with him, because of how he was
speaking to her, because she was
frustrated and angry with him.
‘She assaulted him in the living
room then pushed him in the kitchen.
She was aware of the frailty of her
father.’ Townsend was remanded on
bail to await sentence.
Judge Peter Blair QC told her: ‘A
prison sentence is likely. This is a
very sad case.’
In the first case of its type, in 2009,
electrical engineer Paul Harvey, 47,
of Euston, London, admitted killed
his wife by throwing a remote control
at her.
Gloria Laguna, 48, died from a
brain haemorrhage after the device
hit a weak artery in her neck.
Harvey admitted manslaughter.
His jail sentence was cut from three
years to 21 months after the Court of
Appeal heard that neither he nor his
wife knew she had a weak artery and
her death was a fluke.‘She was aware of
his frailty’
“I would advise you don’t go to court- I will know what you are saying. It
is best you just say you want to stay
out of it.” The messages she left – can
they be interpreted in any other way
than trying to interfere with the
course of justice?’
Miss Elder added: ‘Nicola Townsend
says she chucked a remote at Terence