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SUSPECTED ASSISTED SUICIDE CASES GO UNPROSECUTED

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21 September 2011

No prosecutions since the introduction of new assisted suicide guidelines in February last year.

Since the guidelines took effect, 30 suspects have faced the Crown Prosecution Service yet no prosecutions have followed. In the past year, there have been 18 cases; 3 of which were withdrawn, 13 of which resulted in no action and 2 of which are still under investigation.

The guidelines state that if the individual had come to a “voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision to commit suicide” and the suspect was acting out of empathy alone, then a prosecution was less likely to be sustained. This is not to say, however, that the suspect would not be subject to legal proceedings as the circumstances and intentions in each case would be assessed separately.

Whilst the Crown Prosecution Service denies that this reveals a relaxation of legislation regarding assisted suicide, the Commission on Assisted Dying welcomes this apparent trend. Secretary to the commission, Louise Bazalgette, said that the “current legal status of assisted suicide in the UK remains incoherent and problematic. Whilst it is clearly a positive thing that family members who assist a relative to commit suicide for wholly compassionate reasons are not then being prosecuted, this does not mean that we have ‘solved’ the issue of assisted suicide in this country”.

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