A jury took just 30 minutes to clear a pensioner of murder for beating her husband to death with a pole after decades of abuse.

Packiam Ramanathan, 73, killed partially paralysed Kanagusabi Ramanathan, 76, at their home in East Ham, London, on September 21 last year.

Paramedics found the man, who suffered from blood cancer and used a wheelchair to aid his mobility, lying dead in one of the bedrooms.

Packiam Ramanathan, 73, admitted manslaughter and has been cleared of murder (Picture: Central News)

A post mortem examination revealed he had died of multiple injuries to his head and neck. It also revealed he had a broken arm, believed to have been injured when he tried to defend himself.

Police found a blood-stained wooden stick in a cupboard in the couple’s hallway during a search of the home, the Old Bailey heard.

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Ramanathan admitted killing her husband with the stick, but claimed she only did so after suffering years of bullying and abuse at his hands.

She told the court she only discovered in March last year that her husband had been married before and had fathered three children with another wife.

Prosecutor Sally O’Neill QC said she launched ‘a brutal and sustained attack’ on her defenceless husband as he was lying in his bed and ‘was probably motivated by anger’.

But Stephen Kamlish QC, defending, said Ramanathan was ‘a properly abused slave’ who ‘snapped’ after being made to feel ‘invisible’ by her abusive partner.

Kanagusabi Ramanathan was killed by his wife at their home in East Ham, London, in September last year (Picture: Central News)

Ramanathan admitted manslaughter and was remanded in custody by Judge Anuja Dhir QC ahead of sentencing on Friday.

She told the court her husband regularly beat her and accused her of cheating on him with a fishmonger because he had called her ‘darling’.

The couple had married in Sri Lanka after the death of Ramanathan’s parents when she was 37.

They fled the country in 1983 during a bloody civil war which saw 500,000 people displaced.

She said the abuse began while living in a refugee camp in Bavaria, Germany, for two years, where her husband had a job as a security guard.

He would return to her drunk and begin to ask about her former sexual partners, which she denied having, she claimed.

Once, he became so drunk he hurled a paperweight at her head, leaving her with a scar still visible today, the court heard.

Ramanathan was cleared of murder in just 30 minutes by a jury at The Old Bailey in London (Picture: Rex/Shutterstock)

In 2005, when the couple went back to Sri Lanka, Ramanathan refused to return to Germany and instead stayed with her family for two years.

They reunited in 2007 and moved to the flat in East Ham.

Prosecutor Ms O’Neill said: ‘It may well be that she resented being asked or required to return to London to look after her husband who was becoming increasingly dependent on her.’

On the day of the killing, Ramanathan’s niece, Mathusha Fernando, went to the flat with her husband because she had not heard from her uncle.

It was then that Ramanathan confessed to the killing, saying: ‘I have beaten him. I am telling you what has happened. I have hit him, beaten him, he died.’

Mr Kamish told jurors: ‘She has never lifted a finger against anyone in her life.

‘She has never even killed an insect and yet the prosecution want you to convict her so she can be described for the rest of her life as a murderer.’

Ramanathan was called a ‘whore’ and a ‘c**t’ by her husband who also said: ‘You f****d the fishmonger’, the lawyer argued.

He added: ‘Everyone has admitted she was a slave but not just a slave – a properly abused slave.’

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Ramanathan, of Burges Road, East Ham, denied murder and was cleared of the charge. She had earlier admitted manslaughter.

Detective Sergeant Anthony Atkin, the investigating officer from the Met’s Homicide and Major Crime Command, described it as a ‘tragic case’.