Leith tells of brother’s agony as she backs assisted dying
PRUE LEITH has spoken of how her brother died in agony because doctors were afraid of hastening his death.
The restaurateur and presenter told how her brother David “suffered months of agony and a horrific death from bone cancer” as she backed a man suffering from motor neurone disease who has brought an assisted dying case to the Court of Appeal.
She said: “David’s doctors would not give him enough morphine ‘for fear he’d become addicted’. The real reason, of course, was the fear of being prosecuted for unlawful killing if the extra morphine should hasten his death.
“We should not put patients or doctors in this untenable position.”
Her brother, who had worked for the RAF and for Leith’s company Good Food, died in 2012 at the age of 74.
Having moved to South Africa, he became ill during a visit to England to see his son and daughter. He initially told relatives that he had wrenched his back moving a fridge, but was persuaded to see a doctor and was diagnosed with bone cancer.
He became too ill to travel and was eventually forced to refuse antibiotics and allow the pneumonia brought on by his condition to kill him.
Leith, a judge on The Great British Bake Off, was speaking as Noel Conway, a 68-year-old retired university lecturer, began a three-day case at the Court of Appeal.
Outlining his case to three senior judges yesterday, Mr Conway’s lawyers said the law as it stands interferes with his rights and that the court must decide whether that interference is “justified and proportionate”.
Nathalie Lieven QC said: “The question for this court is not a very generalised one of the morality or ethics of allowing doctors to assist patients to die.
“The question for this court is rather a focused one of whether for this very specific cohort – terminally ill people with less than six months to live – the ban is justifiable because of an impact on the weak and vulnerable.”
Mr Conway previously asked the High Court for a declaration that the Suicide Act 1961, which outlaws assisted suicide, is incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which relates to respect for private and family life, and Article 14, which protects from discrimination. His case was rejected in October last year, and he is appealing to the higher court to overturn that ruling. Mr Conway is too unwell to travel to London for the hearing, but is watching proceedings over a video link from Telford Crown Court.
Sir Patrick Stewart, the actor, also voiced his support for Mr Conway’s case, citing the experiences of a “dear friend” who died from cancer.
Mr Conway’s case is supported by Dignity in Dying, whose chief executive, Sarah Wootton, said: “Terminally ill people like Noel should be shown compassion and respect but instead our outdated laws force dying people into taking drastic measures in order to salvage some control over the end of their lives.”
However, The Distant Voices, a disability campaign group which opposes the case, created a “giant graveyard” outside the Royal Courts of Justice to highlight the “danger” of changing the law.
Nikki Kenward, a campaigner who has Guillainbarré syndrome, said: “Should Mr Conway win his case it will change my life forever. As a disabled person I am only too aware that some people see me as having ‘no quality of life’.”