Woman found not guilty of aiding suicide
Susan Austen has been found not guilty of aiding the suicide of Annemarie Treadwell in Wellington on June 6, 2016.
The verdict was delivered at the High Court in Wellington yesterday.
Supporters stayed quiet until the not guilty of aiding suicide was delivered, when there was a collective gasp of relief.
But Austen was found guilty of two charges of specific importations of pentobarbitone but not guilty on a third charge of importing spanning about four years. Austen’s lawyer asked for no convictions to be entered on the two charges where there were guilty verdicts.
Austen was remanded on bail to be sentenced on May 11.
After the verdicts Detective Sergeant Richard Gibson said the police had put forward all the evidence they had. It was a sensitive case and the verdicts reflected that, he said.
The day had begun with dozens of supporters applauding as Austen entered the court.
Many had attended the two week hearing. As the trial progressed donations continued to roll in to fund her legal defence, and $68,300 had been raised.
Austen, 67, was a former primary school teacher. She has two adult sons and is married. She was co-ordinator of the Wellington branch of Exit International, and chaired Wellington End-of-Life Choice, which is where she thought she first met Treadwell.
They had both been adopted and Treadwell had seen that as a bond between them.
Treadwell, 77, had been an advocate for law change and made a submission to a select committee in support of that.
She died at a Kilbirnie, Wellington, retirement village apartment, where she had lived for about seven years.
She was described during the trial as being lively, a church goer, supporter of Exit International and the Voluntary Euthanasia Society , and keen on music performances. Austen described her as always being ‘‘beautifully made up’’, and looking stunning.
But there was another side to Treadwell. Arthritis was crippling her hands and moving to her feet. She had sore hips and jaw, and from at least 1991 she had been receiving treatment for depression. Winter was harder.
Her diary recorded that she had shared with Austen her ‘‘date’’, May 31, the last day of autumn. She actually killed herself on June 6, 2016.
The judge had told jurors in her summing up on Friday that even though a bill was currently before Parliament to allow terminally ill, or people suffering grievous or incurable illness, to ask for assisted dying that was irrelevant to the decisions they had to make in Austen’s case.
During a two week trial the jury heard that when police started investigating Treadwell’s death, it found references in her diary to a person they believed was Austen. A High Court judge allowed police to bug Austen’s house and phone calls and collect her emails.
Austen’s supporters had reacted to evidence about police setting up a drink-driving checkpoint near in Maungaraki, Lower Hutt, where Austen lived. It was a ruse to get the names of people who attended an Exit International meeting at Austen’s home on October 2, 2016.
Police said it was to follow-up with people who went to the meeting to make sure they were okay. Austen’s supporters laughed when it was said in evidence.
From his home in South Africa, the president of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies, Professor Sean Davison, said the use of the bogus checkpoint was ‘‘abhorrent’’ to target elderly ladies attending a pro-euthanasia meeting.
Davison, a New Zealander, had been found guilty in the High Court in Dunedin in 2011 of assisting the suicide of his terminally ill mother. He was sentenced to home detention. He said the prosecution of Austen saddened him because she had responded to Treadwell’s desperate pleas.
❚ Diary reveals emotional plight,
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