A millionaire property developer who has admitted helping his first wife to die was jailed for attacking his second wife with a wooden mallet, it has emerged.
Ex-Army medic Douglas Hellier Laing is being investigated by police over the death of his first wife, who was terminally ill, after he confessed in a letter to a newspaper that he gave her a fatal injection.
The 71-year-old former Tory councillor said he was willing to 'take whatever was coming' after writing the letter to contribute to the debate on assisted dying.
Following its publication, Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed it had begun a homicide investigation.
It has since emerged that Laing was jailed for three years in December 2017 for striking his second wife Susan, 59, on the head with a mallet.
Douglas Hellier Laing, 71, admitted to having helped his ex-wife die in 1998, after her terminal ovarian cancer 'became too much to bear'. Devon and Cornwall Police have launched an investigation into the death, as it emerges he was jailed in 2017 for attacking his second wife
Laing hit her three times before calling police to their home near Exeter.
He showed 'no emotion' as he attacked her in October 2017 after drinking Tia Maria and Polish brandy, Exeter Crown Court heard.
Mrs Laing managed to escape to a neighbour's home and said in a victim statement: 'I still suffer from flashbacks and I still see his expressionless face as he hit me.'
