Woman wins right to challenge whether husband should be jailed for helping her die

Debbie Purdy wants an assurance that her husband will not be prosecuted if he helps her travel abroad to a suicide clinic once her illness becomes unbearable.

The case is sure to reignite the right to die debate.

Legal challenge: Debbie Purdy wants to know if her husband Omar Puente could be prosecuted if he helps her travel abroad to die

Wheelchair-bound Miss Purdy, 45, who spent years adventuring around the world, now lives with her husband Omar Puente, 46, in Bradford.

She was diagnosed in 1995 with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, which is incurable and worsens unpredictably.

She has been dependent on a wheelchair since 2001, takes a daily regime of painkillers and is in frequent danger of choking.

She is a member of Dignitas, the controversial Swiss suicide clinic which has helped almost 100 Britons die.

Seeking clarity: Debbie and Omar arrive at the High Court. The 45-year-old adventuress settled back in England and married her Cuban husband after being diagnosed with MS

Miss Purdy said last night: 'I don't want to die. I'm extremely happy in my life, I love my friends, I love being married to my husband.

'But if I leave it too late and need his help, he faces 14 years in jail. And that's more frightening to me than going to Switzerland by myself while I still can and ending my life before I'm ready.

'For 13 years I've been in love with this man, he's everything to me, and I'm not about to see him take a risk of prosecution because of something that's happening to me.'

Under the 1961 Suicide Act, aiding or abetting a suicide is punishable by up to 14 years' imprisonment.

Miss Purdy went to the High Court in London seeking permission to challenge the alleged refusal of the Director of Public Prosecutions to state a clear policy on whether, and in what circumstances, people might be prosecuted.

She sat at the front of the court to hear Jeremy Johnson, for the DPP, submit that her case was unarguable because there was no specific policy
on assisted suicide and no legal obligation on the DPP to publish one.

He also said her bid to have the law clarified under Article 8 (right to respect for personal and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights was blocked by legal precedent.

But Lord Justice Latham, sitting with Mr Justice Nelson, ruled that 'without wishing to give Ms Purdy any optimism that her arguments will ultimately succeed', she did have a case which should go to a full hearing, expected in October.

Miss Purdy said she began considering her legal challenge after hearing about motor neurone sufferer Diane Pretty, who fought to the House of Lords in an unsuccessful bid to get immunity for her husband if he helped her to die in the UK.

Miss Purdy said: 'It really made me think, "What's going to happen to me?".'

She hopes that assisted suicide will one day become legal.

ASSISTING SUICIDE, THE LEGAL AND MORAL TANGLE

• The 1961 Suicide Act made it illegal for anyone to aid, abet, counsel or procure the suicide of another or an attempt by another to commit suicide. Lawyers must prove that the person wanted to die, was seriously ill and may have tried to kill themselves in the past, meaning the assister merely helped finish the job.

• The maximum sentence is 14 years - but in 2006, Paul Weber was jailed for 12 months for assisting his mother's suicide. He strangled her after she took an overdose.

•The line between assisted suicide and murder and manslaughter is blurred. In 2006, David March discovered his wife had taken an overdose and put a plastic bag over her head.

She was still breathing slightly, so he tightened the bag to quicken her death. He was charged with murder, but this was reduced to manslaughter and he escaped jail.

• The law has been thrown into further confusion by the Swiss firm Dignitas, where 92 Britons are reported to have died. No one has ever been prosecuted for taking someone there.

The law appears to define assisting suicide as administering a fatal dose rather than just pushing a wheelchair.