Father who killed ill son avoids jail term
Andrew Wragg, 38, who admitted killing his son but denied murder, was sentenced to two years in jail, suspended for two years, for the manslaughter of 10-year-old Jacob.
After a jury at Lewes Crown Court cleared him of the murder charge, trial Judge Mrs Justice Anne Rafferty told him the case "seems to me exceptional."
"That being so, I consider that there is nothing to be gained by taking from you your liberty. Sending out, as I sentence you, the resounding message that this was not a mercy killing but a deed done by a man suffering from diminished responsibility, the sentence of the court is of two years imprisonment suspended for two years," she said.
Wragg, a former SAS soldier who had worked as a private security guard in Iraq, claimed he was suffering from an abnormality of mind when he suffocated Jacob on July 24 last year at the family home in Worthing, West Sussex.
Jacob suffered with a rare genetic disorder, Hunter Syndrome, which leaves its victims deaf, dumb, incontinent and eventually in a vegetative state before death.
Wragg's former wife Mary said she was not complicit in any plan to end Jacob's life. She said she thought her husband wanted an evening of sex when he called on the day Jacob died, insisting that she take the couple's youngest son George, then six, out of the house to her mother's home for the night. "I would never have left him to face that alone," she said.
Ms Wragg also told the 10-day trial that Jacob had not been close to death, but had been "happy and jolly" on the day he was killed.
But during her lengthy sentencing comments, the judge told the East Sussex court that she had "no doubt" that Ms Wragg was "complicit" in what her husband did.
Referring to the night of July 24, she said: "Your then wife, late that night, removed your younger son from his bed and drove via a late-opening shop to a lay-by where she stopped the car.
"Only after you had telephoned her with the news that Jacob was dead did she drive on to her mother's flat and without any prior arrangement to leave George with her. One would have to be quite remarkably naive to accept that this dedicated and experienced mother behaved in that way solely as to enjoy an evening of prolonged intimacy with you.
"I have no doubt she was complicit. Had I concluded otherwise, I should have formed a harsher view of you. I accept that you would not have taken Jacob's life had you, for a moment, thought that she disagreed with what you were to do...
"All who listened to the evidence must have wondered at the remorseless strain Mary bore lovingly and bravely during the 10 years she dedicated to Jacob - as you concede you did not so consistently do. I shall sentence loyal to what you have always said, that you did not do it for her or for yourself but for him."
Mrs Justice Anne Rafferty said she gave the former SAS soldier credit for his confession that he had killed his eldest son, without which a verdict of natural causes would have been recorded.
"Although Jacob was unable to make such a plea to you, I accept that your genuinely held belief was that what you did would bring to an early end a life afflicted and drawing inexorably to its close without intervention," she said.
"Jacob was vulnerable by virtue of his disability and age and you held out to him a position of trust.
"Mitigating factors are your belief that what you did was an act of mercy, that you reacted to stress you found insupportable, and that you have, from the moment you telephoned the police, admitted what you did.
"No matter your motive, the end of Jacob's life was not in your gift. I am well aware that no sentence the court passes can be measured against the loss of him. Nor should it be."
The jury of eight women and four men took less than five hours to reach the verdict of not guilty to murder.
During the trial, the prosecution claimed Wragg murdered Jacob in a "selfish killing" because he could no longer cope with the boy's condition.
Philip Katz QC, prosecuting, consistently rejected the defendant's account that he had carried out a "mercy killing" to end his son's suffering, telling the court mercy killing was "no defence to murder."
Wragg said he had "seen in Jacob's eyes" that the boy wanted him to end his life, proof, his legal team argued, that the defendant had been suffering an abnormality of mind at the time of the killing.
But Mr Katz suggested Wragg knew exactly what he was doing when he suffocated Jacob - and that his plans for the future showed he was thinking rationally. The court heard how Wragg was planning to return to Iraq for another stint as an £80,000-a-year security guard, how he had booked himself a holiday and socialised with friends.
Wragg left the court without comment.
His father Bob, 64, read a statement, saying: "We are very pleased with the sentence and the sympathy shown by the judge.
"We now would ask that we would at last be allowed to grieve the loss of Jacob who we all loved dearly."
MARY WRAGG, said outside the court she was "shocked" by the sentence. "Firstly I would like to say that this case was never about Jacob's quality of life. Jacob never judged his own life. He wasn't aware he was different or less able in any way," she said.
"Jacob was a happy, loving child living in a sometimes difficult body. He never lost his sense of fun and those who understood him really loved Jacob for being Jacob.
"It has been extremely difficult to sit and listen as the dignity of my little boy has been destroyed in an effort to reduce the impact of his death.
"Jacob's condition has been used as an excuse for this crime and I find it appalling that anyone would try and portray him as being less deserving of his life or less entitled to enjoy every precious moment his condition allowed. I am shocked by the sentence and the message it sends to others."
