Pair quizzed in ‘assisted death’ of man aged 94

TWO people were being quizzed by police yesterday after they were arrested on suspicion of helping a 94-year-old man end his life.

A woman, 89, and a man, 68, were questioned in connection with encouraging or assisting suicide.

Ralph Saxon Snell, of Lymington, Hampshire, was found dead on January 28. A post-mortem examination was carried out by Home Office pathologist Dr Basil Purdue.

But the findings proved inconclusive and an inquest into the death was opened and adjourned until August at Winchester Coroner’s Court.

Senior coroner Grahame Short was told that further tests were needed to determine the cause of death.

The two people arrested from Somerset have been released from police custody but remain under investigation. The relationship between them and the dead man has not yet been revealed.

Last night a Hampshire Police spokesman said: “An investigation is under way to establish the exact circumstances of the death.”

Former company director Mr Snell lived in a £600,000 Georgian-style terrace home.

One of his neighbours said: “He was very nice, very easy, but he hadn’t been well for the past year or so. He wasn’t the same person.”

News of the arrests comes a day after Geoff Whaley, 80, of Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, ended his life at a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to avoid a protracted death from motor neurone disease.

His wife Ann, 76, supported his decision but reportedly said his final weeks were marred by police inquiries over her involvement in his plans. Officers dropped the case but the couple called for the law to be changed.

A poll of GPs found 55 per cent either agreed or strongly agreed that medical bodies should “adopt a position of neutrality on the issue of assisted dying for terminally ill, competent adults”.

Euthanasia and assisted dying are both illegal in the UK. Euthanasia is the act of deliberately ending a person’s life to relieve suffering.

Depending on the circumstances, euthanasia is regarded as either manslaughter or murder. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment. Assisted suicide is the act of deliberately assisting or encouraging death. Under the Suicide Act (1961), it is punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment.