Nundle killer: Neil Douglas Morris police video | sentence hearing Tamworth District Court

FOR the first time, a court has been shown inside the home of the man who let his fiancee rot to death in Nundle.

The Leader can reveal the contents of the video that showed the recliner she basically lived in was drenched in bodily fluids.

Neil Douglas Morris looked away as parts of a tape of police executing a search warrant on his Nundle home was played in Tamworth District Court on Thursday.

The 58-year-old, who has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, sat in the dock for the first day of his sentence hearing.

Police turned up on Morris' doorstep after doctors told detectives it was likely the bug-infested wounds that killed the victim had been present for months.

In the video, Morris took police on a tour of the couple's home, where they lived together for two decades.

The television blared in the living room where the morbidly obese victim spent most of her time.

The carpet where her recliner once sat bore two dark stains as a result of weeping wounds on her legs.

Three weeks before the victim died, a solicitor was called to the house to finalise their wills, Morris told police.

"I said to her, 'That's all done', then after that she started not eating, eating very little - less and less and less," he said in the crime scene video.

"On Thursday, [the day the victim died] she wouldn't even let me get her up to change her pants and incontinence pads, she wouldn't even let me start doing that."

Morris told police he struggled to sleep thinking about her death, telling them he was "no doctor" and that he worried he had "left it too long" before seeking medical care.

When the ambulance took the victim to hospital, she believed it was 1974.

Two experts will be called on Friday to give evidence about Morris' mental state at the time, and whether or not he suffered from depression in the months leading up to the victim's death.

Crown prosecutor Brian Costello told the court there were inconsistencies between the statement Morris gave to police the night of the search warrant, and what he told the community nurse who called an ambulance the day the victim died.

That point was dismissed by Judge Jeffery McLennan, who said Morris could hardly be expected to be a fully functioning individual the same day his partner died.

Morris may only be held accountable for a 53-minute window on the day the manslaughter occurred between 1.30pm and 2.30pm.

"The point in which he was criminally negligent has to be gauged in reference to all those elements, particularly her right to refuse treatment."

Judge Jeffery McLennan told the court he had no doubt the offender loved the woman but struggled with the guilt that would come with betraying her wishes to not seek medical help.

All parties agreed the victim was resistant to treatment in the days that led up to her death, but the rotted wound on her back - covered in "small, midge-like insects" and ultimately causing her death - was likely present for months, police evidence showed.

The victim had the right to refuse medical care, to refuse food and to die in her own home if that's what she wanted, Judge McLennan said, and he would need to be persuaded that the carer's responsibility overshadowed those rights.

"I see the need for experts to comment on what I call - and this is not a medical term - 'decisional paralysis'," he said.

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Meanwhile, the victim sat in a pool of her own urine and faeces, Crown prosecutor Brian Costello argued.

"What if that is what she wanted? Where is his criminality if that is what she wanted?" Judge McLennan said.

"I'd like to know the answer to that, because I'm having difficulty seeing it for the moment."

Morris' matter will return to court for sentence on Friday, when two experts will be called to give evidence.

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