Prosecute me, says GP who helped euthanasia patients

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A retired GP who was arrested on suspicion of helping a terminally-ill friend to kill himself has told The Independent he has advised at least five other people on travelling to the Swiss euthanasia clinic Dignitas.

A retired GP who was arrested on suspicion of helping a terminally-ill friend to kill himself has told The Independent he has advised at least five other people on travelling to the Swiss euthanasia clinic Dignitas.

One of the five, a woman in her 40s with advanced liver failure, killed herself in the clinic's "death room" in November last year. The other four are still alive but have been given information by Dr Michael Irwin on how to join Dignitas, travel to the clinic and obtain the medical reports needed to win approval for their assisted suicides.

Dr Irwin, from Surrey, has challenged the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to prosecute him. He says he is willing to risk a possible 14-year jail term in order to test the law on euthanasia in Britain.

"At the moment we have hypocrisy and double standards in this country about assisted suicide," he said. "We have a law against aiding and abetting suicide, and yet people who have travelled with their relatives to Dignitas and helped them to die are not being questioned or prosecuted. I would like to see the law tested on cases where a person is travelling abroad for assisted suicide."

Dr Irwin resigned as chairman of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society in February after he was arrested over the death of his friend Patrick Kneen.

The GP admitted he had drawn up a plan to help Mr Kneen, who had prostate cancer, to kill himself and had flown to his friend's Isle of Man home with a fatal dose of sleeping pills. However, Mr Kneen was too weak to take the pills and died naturally in October last year.

Dr Irwin was questioned but a decision was made not to prosecute him.

Assisted suicide is not illegal in Switzerland and Dignitas provides people with the use of a flat and supplies of lethal drugs, so long as they can prove they have no hope of recovery.

Dr Irwin says that many other doctors may be handing over medical reports to terminally-ill people in the knowledge that they are planning to travel to Dignitas, but are turning a blind eye to the issue.

He has spoken out in the wake of the inquest last week into the deaths of Robert and Jennifer Stokes, who killed themselves at Dignitas earlier this year.

The couple had a history of mental illness and had chronic diseases, but were not terminally ill. The case has raised questions about so-called "suicide tourism" and the law on euthanasia in the UK.

The law which criminalised suicide was scrapped in England and Wales in 1961, but helping someone to kill themselves is illegal and carries a maximum 14-year jail term.