Date set for review of assisted suicide

9:51pm Wednesday 20th August 2008

A date has been set for a landmark judicial review of the law on assisted suicide, prompted by a Bradford MS sufferer.

Debbie Purdy, 45, of Undercliffe, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, is asking the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to clarify the law regarding friends or relatives who help a loved one travel to a country where assisted suicide is lawful.

The review will take place on Thursday, October 2, and Friday, October 3, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Two High Court judges gave Debbie leave in June to challenge the alleged refusal by the DPP to state a clear policy on whether, and in what circumstances, people might be prosecuted if they help loved ones to die.

Currently, the law in England and Wales states that assisting a suicide is punishable by up to 14 years imprisonment. As there is no law to allow her to have a medically assisted death, Debbie would like the option of travelling to Dignitas, Switzerland.

No one who has accompanied a loved one to Dignitas has been prosecuted, but people have been questioned by the police and threatened with prosecution. Debbie’s case asks the DPP to clarify the policy on this issue. She believes failure to do so may result in her travelling alone to Dignitas before she is ready to die, as she does not want her husband, Omar Puente, to face prosecution if he accompanies her.

Debbie’s case is being supported by Dignity in Dying, an organisation which campaigns for greater choice, control and access to services at the end of life.

This includes access to quality palliative care and the option of an assisted death for mentally competent, terminally ill adults in unbearable suffering.

They say Debbie’s case highlights the desperate dilemma some terminally ill people are faced with at the end of their lives under the current legal system. Almost 100 British citizens are reported to have used the Dignitas clinic since 1992.

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