By the time you read this, I’ll be dead
Dignitas grandfather’s haunting note – after police warned wife she faced jail for helping him
‘He put his head down and sobbed’
A GRANDFATHER has begged MPs to change the law in an emotional letter sent moments before he ended his life at Dignitas.
Retired accountant Geoffrey Whaley, who had motor neurone disease, wrote: ‘By the time you read this, I’ll be dead.’
The 80-year-old chose the Swiss assisted dying clinic rather than face ‘immense suffering’ from his illness. He died peacefully in his wife Ann’s arms, and surrounded by family and friends.
Moments before he sipped a cup of water laced with lethal drugs at 10am yesterday, his family released his open letter to MPs calling for a change in the law which he said had ‘robbed me of control over my death’.
He sobbed for the first time in five decades when his wife of 52 years was questioned by police – who had been tipped off that she was ‘helping’ him to die.
Assisted suicide is illegal in Britain. Critics fear any change in legislation could be abused to end the lives of the vulnerable. However, some 400 Britons have chosen to travel to Switzerland, where it is legal, and end their lives at Dignitas.
On Wednesday, Mr Whaley had a final dinner with his wife, daughter Alix, 43, and son Dominic, 47, at a hotel in Zurich. Yesterday his loved ones gathered around his bed at Dignitas.
Before leaving their £900,000 detached home in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, Mr Whaley and his wife resolved to speak out to put pressure on MPs to change the law here.
He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease two years ago, and in December doctors informed him he had six to nine months left. During the final week of his life, he described it as an ‘illness that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy’, adding that the final weeks ‘can be particu- larly gruesome’. He said: ‘I decided that I didn’t really want to go through that.’
In his poignant letter to MPs, uploaded to the website of the Campaign for Dignity in Dying shortly before his death, he wrote: ‘With [my family’s] love and support I have been able to fulfil my final wish: to be in control of my end, rather than endure the immense suffering motor neurone disease had in store for me.
‘I am 80 years old and have lived a full life. I simply wanted to cut this suffering short by a few months.
‘The law in this country robbed me of control over my death. It forced me to seek solace in Switzerland. Then it sought to punish those attempting to help me get there. The hypocrisy and cruelty of this is astounding.’
Mrs Whaley had booked flights to Switzerland and a hotel because her husband was no longer able to use his hands. ‘These are the acts that apparently make me a criminal,’ she told the BBC. ‘ In my eyes, I am not a lawbreaker. I simply love my husband.’
An anonymous call to social services led Thames Valley Police to investigate. Helping someone commit suicide is punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Mr Whaley said: ‘I really wanted a quiet few weeks to reflect on what is happening. No family should ever have to endure the torment we have undergone in recent weeks.’
Mrs Whaley said: ‘They [police] were clearly not expecting to find a non-abusive situation. They were quite embarrassed.’ The couple met in 1963, and married in 1966. Mrs Whaley said: ‘Geoff and I have been very happily married for 52 years. I have never seen him cry. The day the police called, he put his head down and sobbed. ‘ Geoff ’ s carefully thoughtthrough decision to have control over his end had enabled us to cope with his horrific illness. To think that my husband might suddenly be deprived of his final wish, and that I might be arrested for doing what any loving wife would do, was unconscionable.’ Mr Whaley’s wish to control his own death via Dignitas cost £11,000.
Sarah Wootton of campaign group Dignity in Dying, which has been supporting the Whaley family, said: ‘Every eight days someone from the UK travels to Switzerland for an assisted death. Banning the practice in this country does not make it go away.’
Thames Valley Police said: ‘A thorough investigation was carried out and… the matter was closed with no further action.’