Hornsey Rise gran thought of suicide before suffocating partner with Spurs bag

A grandmother thought of killing herself before she suffocated her terminally ill former partner with a Tottenham Hotspur plastic bag, a court heard this week.

Joyce Evans, 69, of New Orleans Walk, had considered jumping off her balcony and overdosing on Colin Ballinger’s morphine tablets.

Instead she focused on Mr Ballinger, 66, with whom she shared a flat in Hornsey Rise, as the cause of her problems, said forensic psychiatrist Dr Piyal Sen.

He added: “She saw Colin as the specific cause of her problems.

“She had tried every other means to take care of the problem. She felt trapped with no way out. She chose to take care of it in a way which was irrational.”

Evans denies murdering Mr Ballinger on July 30 last year.

She has declined to give evidence in person but Dr Sen was called by the defence.

Former soldier Mr Ballinger was dying from alcoholism and Evans had agreed to care for him at her home when no one else could help him.

But Evans, who suffered from depression and a personality disorder, was finding it difficult to cope and blamed Mr Ballinger for her problems, said Dr Sen.

The prosecution says she killed her partner because she believed he was better off dead.

She is alleged to have strangled him and put the Spurs bag and a Hamleys bag over his head, before telling a neighbour: “I think I’ve killed Colin. He was getting on my nerves.”

Evans, who had been drinking vodka, was said to have tried to stop paramedics reviving Mr Ballinger. He died the next day.

The trial continues.