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MS sufferer wins first step in battle over assisted suicide
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent11.06.08
A multiple sclerosis sufferer has won the first round in her legal battle to allow her husband to help her commit suicide.
Two High Court judges granted Debbie Purdy the right to have her case heard to clarify the law on assisted suicide.
Miss Purdy, 45, had challenged the refusal of the Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald to confirm whether her Cuban husband Omar Puente would be charged if he had to help her end her life.
The court heard that there is no clear policy on whether, and in what circumstances, people might be prosecuted if they help loved ones to die.
Today Lord Justice Latham, sitting with Mr Justice Nelson, ruled that "without wishing to give Miss Purdy any optimism that her arguments will ultimately succeed" she did have an arguable case which should go to a full hearing. Miss Purdy, who enjoyed trekking through jungles and jumping out of planes before illness set in, plans to choose her moment to die.
She wants to know whether her husband will be prosecuted if he helps her travel to a Swiss clinic to commit suicide, if her condition becomes unbearable. Her fear is that Mr Puente, a professional musician, could be arrested on his return home.
The DPP has indicated there is no specific policy for assisted suicide, and he is not in a position to grant immunity from prosecution. He also said he had no plans to issue further guidance, and the only code available on prosecution was that set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors.
Miss Purdy said recently: "I don't want to die. I'm extremely happy in my life, I love being married to my husband, I love my friends. 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 and ending my life before I'm ready." Miss Purdy, of Bradford, West Yorks, was diagnosed with primary progressive MS in 1995 and is in a wheelchair.
Under the Suicide Act 1961, aiding or abetting a suicide is a crime punishable by up to 14 years' imprisonment. Although almost 100 Britons are reported to have died at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland since 1992, none of their relatives has been prosecuted for accompanying them, despite lengthy police probes.
Miss Purdy said: "The least I can expect is the law as it relates to me is entirely transparent and I should know exactly what to expect."
Reader views (2)
I cannot understand how a government can think that 24 week abortion is OK and remember this unborn child has no voice, and then refuse to allow a normal thinking sane person, with a voice, to commit assisted suicide. It really is double standards.
- Joan Battershill, Mitcham Surrey
The law on assisted suicide is completely inhumane, and without any moral or intellectual support. Unfortunately it has powerful and unrepresentative defenders, notably the churches: the Church of England always mobilises its rotten borough in the House of Lords to oppose any change. Even if this poor woman is granted her wish, it will not alter the fact that we suffer under a primitive and barbarous law that the vast majority of the population do not want.
- Colin Howson, Toronto, Canada
