“An IT consultant who helped his wife commit suicide to escape decades of chronic pain will not face charges because he was ‘wholly motivated by compassion’, the Crown Prosecution Service announced yesterday.”
Daily Telegraph, 25th May 2010
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“The Crown Prosecution Service has decided that, while there is sufficient evidence to charge Caractacus Downes with an offence of assisting the suicide of his parents, Sir Edward and Lady Joan Downes, it is not in the public interest to do so.”
Crown Prosecution Service, 19th March 2010
Source: www.cps.gov.uk
“Tidying things up can make them worse. That is the worry about Keir Starmer’s valiant attempt yesterday to clarify the law on assisted suicide. The Director of Public Prosecutions had no choice, of course. His hand was forced by the House of Lords, following Debbie Purdy’s historic legal victory in winning the right to determine the timing and manner of her own death.”
The Independent, 26th February 2010
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“David Batty examines the legal issues of the updated guidelines.”
The Guardian, 25th February 2010
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“Assisted suicide will be effectively decriminalised by the back door in landmark guidance to be published next week.”
Daily Telegraph, 19th February 2010
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“Full guidance on when prosecutions should be brought for assisting suicide will be published next week, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.”
The Independent, 17th February 2010
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“Calls for a change in the law on assisted suicide in England and Wales have reignited the debate on whether the terminally ill should have the right to be helped to die. But who wants what?”
BBC News, 1st February 2010
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“Earlier this month, Frances Inglis was jailed for nine years for murder after injecting her brain-damaged son Thomas, 22, with a lethal dose of heroin. Just days later, Kay Gilderdale pleaded guilty to assisting suicide but was acquitted of murdering her daughter Lynn, 31, an ME sufferer whom she’d given morphine. Legal affairs correspondent Afua Hirsch explains the difference between these two cases.”
The Guardian, 29th January 2010
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“A question has arisen as to whether it was in the public interest for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to have prosecuted Kay Gilderdale for attempted murder.”
Crown Prosecution Service, 26th January 2010
Source: www.cps.gov.uk
“In a strongly-worded submission to the Crown Prosecution Service, England’s oldest medical institution says that any clinician suspected of helping someone die should be investigated by police. It also warns that the draft clarification of the Suicide Act will mean doctors are ‘coerced’ into speculating on how long a patient has to live, so that their loved ones are able to escape prosecution for assisted suicide by claiming they were terminally ill.”
Daily Telegraph, 20th January 2010
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“A ‘devoted mother’ who discovered her desperately ill daughter in the midst of a suicide attempt spent 28 hours administering a cocktail of lethal drugs to her after failing to convince her to go on living, a court heard today.”
The Guardian, 18th January 2010
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“Alison Davis claims that a legal ruling that forced the change was unsound, alleging the ‘apparent bias’ of one of the judges, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, now the Supreme Court’s president, who later expressed strong personal views on the subject in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.”
Daily Telegraph, 7th December 2009
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“Doctors who allow suicidal patients to die because they have written a ‘living will’ could be breaking Government guidelines, Roman Catholic bishops claim.”
Daily Telegraph, 6th October 2009
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“The law on ‘living wills’ could be reviewed after a young woman used one to commit suicide, Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, has said.”
Daily Telegraph, 4th October 2009
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“Internet campaigners whose advice on how to take your own life is used in an assisted suicide face possible prosecution, according to the new guidance published yesterday.”
Daily Telegraph, 24th September 2009
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“Keir Starmer has made the best of a difficult job. First, as widely trailed, he has decided that his assisted suicide guidelines must apply to England and Wales as well as to behaviour abroad. This is surely right: there is no moral difference between an act committed in Geneva and its replica in Hull.”
The Times, 24th September 2009
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
“Launching his interim policy on prosecuting cases of assisted suicide today, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, called for public participation in a 12-week consultation on the factors he has identified which will be taken into account when considering whether prosecutions will be brought for this offence.”
Crown Prosecution Service, 23rd September 2009
Source: www.cps.gov.uk
“Family members who help loved ones to commit suicide when they are not suffering from a terminal illness are more likely to be prosecuted, Keir Starmer, Director of Public Prosecutions, has suggested.”
Daily Telegraph, 23rd September 2009
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“The publication of guidance on when prosecutions should be brought in assisted suicide cases represents a victory for multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy.”
BBC News, 23rd September 2009
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
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