Man who killed wife gets pub ban

A judge has spared a man who strangled his wife from jail, but banned him from his local pub. Seventy-four-year-old Edward Flaherty has dementia and claimed not to remember killing his wife of 52 years last year. The judge decided he was too ill to go to prison, but instead placed him under a year-long "restriction of liberty" order, under which he must wear an electronic tag and may not leave his home during opening hours.

"Sentencing you would just be a token gesture," the Lord Matthews told Flaherty at the high court in Glasgow. "I am anxious to impose a sentence that restricts your liberty. You still go to the pub where you went with your wife. That must annoy her relatives. Not being able to go there will be a more meaningful disposal than a prison sentence which will not last long."