Inquiry call after family court hell
DAUGHTER FACED TRAUMA AS MUM ACCUSED OF ILL SPOUSE’S KILLING:
A WOMAN from Burton whose mother faced going to prison for murder after she helped her terminally ill husband take his own life is calling for an inquiry on assisted dying.
Joy Munns, 55, witnessed her 81-year-old mother, Mavis Eccleston, face the trauma of going through a criminal trial and risk jail for helping her dad Dennis Eccleston, also 81, to die.
Mr Eccleston had terminal bowel cancer and wanted to avoid a protracted and painful death.
Mavis and Dennis decided to end their own lives together but Mavis survived and being treated in hospital. She was then charged with murdering her husband, which she denied.
In September 2019, a jury at Stafford Crown Court found her not guilty of murder and manslaughter.
Ms Munns said: “My mum and dad were together for 60 years and she would have done anything for him including helping him to die peacefully and without pain.
“But her actions, motivated wholly by love, landed her in cell for 30 hours and then in the dock on trial for murder. On top of losing dad, we were terrified we would see our mum spend the rest of her life in prison.”
She is now calling for MPS to launch an inquiry into the law which imposes a blanket ban on assisted dying, as the All-party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Choice at the End of Life is due to meet on Wednesday.
Next week Ms Munns will be speaking to the parliamentary group chaired by MP Karin Smyth.
The meeting is being convened to hear harrowing personal stories like the Ecclestons’ and expert international opinion regarding the impact of the blanket ban on assisted dying.
Other speakers will include Attorney General and former Health Minister in Victoria, Australia, Jill Hennessy MP, and Times journalist Danny Finkelstein.
Jill Hennessy was the minister in charge of Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill, the first successful legislation on the subject to be passed in Australia, in 2017.
Mavis and Dennis Eccleston’s story was one of many heartbreaking cases featured in a new book published last month, which has reignited calls for a parliamentary inquiry into the UK’S blanket ban on assisted dying.
The book called Last Rights: The Case for Assisted Dying by Sarah Wootton and Lloyd Riley of the campaign group Dignity in Dying, has won support from high-profile figures, including actor Sir Patrick Stewart, chef and TV presenter Prue Leith, and author Ian Mcewan.
The book looks through the lens of the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that it has, “exposed everything that is wrong with our relationship with dying” and that the time is now right for a renewed look at UK’S laws against assisted dying.
Ms Munn believes an assisted dying law in the UK would have allowed her father to have a peaceful and dignified death, and saved her mother the trauma of a criminal investigation and murder trial.
She said: “Under a proper assisted dying law, with all the safeguards in place, this would never have happened.
“Our entire family would have been spared months, even years, of pain and anguish.’ Last Rights’ clearly sets out everything that is wrong with how the law treats terminally ill people in this country.
“Politicians now have to sit up a take notice. The law is clearly not working and a parliamentary inquiry is needed urgently.”