Relatives Who Helped Loved Ones to Die Fear Rise in Botched DIY Suicides

By Robert Booth, guardian.co.uk

February 26, 2010

United Kingdom

DPP accused of 'perverse' threat to keep prosecuting medical professionals.

People who have admitted helping terminally ill loved ones kill themselves warned last night that new guidelines on prosecuting assisted suicide cases could encourage more botched "DIY" attempts at home and force more terminally ill Britons to travel abroad to die.

Barrie Sheldon, 77, whose wife Elizabeth died in pain five days after an overdose at home went wrong, said the policy appeared perverse because it discourages the involvement of medical professionals.

Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, said that factors in favour of taking suspects to court included if they were a doctor, nurse or healthcare professional or if they were acting for an organisation focused on helping people die, such as the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

"It is incredible that Starmer is putting out his own guidelines for DIY suicide," said Sheldon. "He seems to be saying it is all right to do it and maybe botch it up at home, but it is not all right to do it professionally."

Starmer said the guidelines do not change the law on assisted suicide and the policy "does not open the door for euthanasia". It remains punishable by up to 14 years in jail.

Sheldon helped his wife kill herself in 1982 after she contracted Huntington's disease, causing dementia and physical deterioration.

"She was writhing about and semi-comatose and her lips and mouth were blackened and burned by the drugs," he said. "These new guidelines are totally unreasonable and put enormous stress on people to get the medication just right when you are already in quite a state. This process needs proper regulation."

Patients at Dignitas near Zurich are given medical help and carefully measured medication which helps them die quickly and painlessly.

Richard Geary, 64, took his wife Jenny to die at the Swiss clinic last August after she was diagnosed with multiple system atrophy, a progressive neurological disease which had affected her balance and co-ordination and was about to stop her from swallowing and finally breathing unaided. There she drank a 50ml draught of muscle relaxant, lay down on a couch, fell asleep and was dead in eight minutes.

He said the new guidelines will encourage more people to go to Dignitas because they set out the conditions for avoiding prosecution during planning stages which take place in Britain. But he said this was not acceptable.

"What I want is a facility like that to be legalised in the UK," he said. "Not for me, but for people who can't afford to spend the £9,000 the whole process cost us to go there. People in the UK are being left on the scrap heap and in pain.

"I would prefer to be able to do this in this country. I had to get a lady who was seriously ill all the way to Switzerland. It would have been much less traumatic to have been able to have done the same here. I am disappointed that this week Gordon Brown has said he will not change the law. He doesn't seem to take into account that people want this debate. The politicians don't want to address the issue."

Geary attended his local police station soon after returning from Switzerland and told officers about what he did. He has heard nothing since.

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