The law ‘must allow assisted suicide in this country’

Terminally ill should not have to ‘traipse off to Switzerland’ to end lives, says Sir Keir Starmer

THE former director of public prosecutions says that the law on assisted suicide needs to change to stop people having to “traipse off to Switzerland”.

Ahead of the Assisted Dying Bill re- turning to Parliament next month, Sir Keir Starmer has called for the law to protect those acting with “compassion”.

Speaking to The Times, he said: “The law needs to be changed. The important thing is to have safeguards.

“The present guidelines have inbuilt limitations, which mean that there can be injustice in a number of cases.”

He added that the guidelines “simply do not deal with the problem of people wishing to end their lives in this country, medically assisted, rather than traipse off to Switzerland”. He told the newspaper that the law does not “strike the right balance” between allowing people with a “voluntary, clear, settled and informed” wish to die to be assisted by someone acting out of compassion and protecting the vulnerable from being pressured to take their life.

Latest figures disclose that more then 160 Britons have travelled to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to end their lives over the past six years.

Sir Keir announced the draft guidelines on assisted suicide in 2009. Since that date there have been 70 prosecutions not proceeded with and 25 withdrawn.

Assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but individual decisions on prosecution are made depending on the circumstances in each case.

Sir Keir was forced to issue the guidelines after a Law Lords ruling in favour of the late Debbie Purdy, who had multiple sclerosis.

Mrs Purdy, who died last December aged 51, won a landmark court ruling to clarify the law on assisted suicide.

She wanted to know whether her husband would be prosecuted for helping her to end her life.

Campaigners said that Mrs Purdy’s legacy made it unlikely that relatives, acting wholly on compassionate grounds and in an amateur capacity would be prosecuted if they helped a sick family member take their own life, if that relative clearly wanted to die.

She had argued in court that it would be a breach of her human rights if she did not know whether her husband would be prosecuted if he travelled with her to the Swiss clinic.

Last month the daughters of Jackie Baker, who is terminally ill with motor neurone disease, were forced to cancel a fund-raising party to be able to send her to Dignitas after the police warned they could be prosecuted for assisted suicide.

Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill, which supporters say will bring greater legal clarity, is set to be debated in the Commons on Sept 11.