Debbie welcomes suicide guidelines (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

MS campaigner cautiously pleased as DPP to outline causes to prosecute

6:27pm Sunday 20th September 2009 in News By James Rush

New guidelines on assisted suicide will “list the factors that are likely to lead to a prosecution and those that aren’t”, the Director of Public Prosecutions has revealed.

Keir Starmer QC is trying to clarify the legal process after Law Lords backed Bradford multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy’s call for a policy statement on whether people who helped someone kill themselves should be prosecuted.

His guidelines will be issued on Wednesday.

Mr Starmer yesterday told the BBC the factors will include whether those helping them have anything to gain from their death.

He said: “The general approach we’ve taken is to steer a careful course between protecting the vulnerable from those that might gain from hastening their death but also identifying those cases where nobody really thinks it’s in the public interest to prosecute.

“We have to look at each case on its merits but the idea is to bring clarity.

“It’s about people being able to understand the basis on which we take decisions.”

He stressed assisted suicide was still illegal and would remain so even after the new guidance was issued.

Reacting to Mr Starmer’s comments, Miss Purdy, 46, of Undercliffe, told the Telegraph & Argus she was pleased with what had been outlined so far.

“Mr Starmer is trying to make a very careful and considered approach and he’s trying to make sure there’s protection for people which isn’t there at the moment,” she said.

Miss Purdy wants to know what would happen to her Cuban husband Omar Puente if he helped her travel abroad to end her life.

She took her case to the highest Court in the country after the High Court and Court of Appeal held that it was for Parliament, not the courts, to change the law.

The Law Lords agreed changes were a matter for Parliament, but upheld Miss Purdy’s argument that the DPP should put in writing the factors he regarded as relevant in deciding whether or not to prosecute.

She said: “He’s trying to make sure he can make the law as relevant as possible.

“I think he’s doing an amazing job – obviously we don’t know yet whether it’s exactly what I would like to see, but the suggestion is that the likelihood is that the clarity will be a lot of what I want to see.

“Just knowing what making one decision does opposed to another, what the likely outcome will be.

“He can’t change the law, he’s not in a position to do that, but he is in a position to take an extremely old law, which is in my opinion a bit out of date, and he’s going to try to bring its practice up to date.”