Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, looks a beefy sort of chap. He’s going to need to be, because he’s the one with his finger in the dyke.
Until last year, the law in England on homicide and suicide was clear. Homicide – the killing by one human being of another human being – is, except in a small number of clearly defined cases, a crime – murder (requires intent) or manslaughter. The related crime of attempted murder is just that – an attempt to murder. Killing oneself – suicide – was decriminalised by the Suicide Act 1961, although assisting – aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring – a suicide, remains a criminal act.
English Law thus has no concept of mercy killing, killing with ‘love in the heart’, or euthanasia. All of these actions remain, in law, unlawful killing, and so can only be murder or manslaughter. Like-wise, assisting a suicide, however well-intentioned, remains a criminal act. Or does it?
In law, it clearly does. But over the last few years, cracks have appeared in the legal barriers. It became clear that whatever the law might say, there were cases – notably those of relatives assisting their ‘loved ones’ to commit suicide abroad – where prosecution did not follow.
These cracks, and the uncertainty they caused, last year led Debbie Purdy to seek clarification in the High Court. The DPP was ordered to issue prosecution guidelines. Starmer duly obliged in September, and in so doing drilled a hole in the dyke. Assisting suicide remained illegal, but there were now circumstances – largely those where there was ‘love in the heart’ – where prosecution was most unlikely. The light, given certain circumstances, had changed from red to green; and a trickle began.
As a result, we are now in a most unstable situation. The dyke has been breached – and deliberately breached at that. A building tide of suicide assistants are pressing ever harder against the dyke, and it is only Starmer’s finger that is holding back the flow. Should his finger slip, as surely it will, then trickle will become a torrent, and then the torrent a flood.
Laws that say ‘you can’t do that; but we wont prosecute you if you do‘ don’t work. Law that is unenforced is not Law. The Suicide Act will be rewritten: and it is in that re-writing that we must exercise the greatest restraint; for we live at a time when the Dimbleby Lecturer shakes hands with death, and Thanatos walks on Main Street.
I have The Guardian deliverd, but must admit to reading The Daily Mail on the bus on the way home from work. I guess I must have a mental health problem! However, The Mail reported thus on 27.1.10:
MPs’ FURY OVER MERCY KILLING TRIAL.
“The Director of Public Prosections has turned the Kay Gilderdale case into a ‘showpiece’ to promote the legalisation of assisted suicide, MPs said yeaterday.
Keir Starmer QC brought an attemped murder trial against the mother to try to build public sympathy for making assisted suicide legal, they added.
Mrs Gilderdale was cleared on Monday of the attempted murder of her daughter Lynn, 31.
She had already pleaded guilty to assisting her suicide.
Yesterday, as the DPP was forced to issue a statement defending the prosecution, a House of Commons motion suggested Mr Starmer brought the charge to coincide with the release of his own guidelines on assisted suicide.
These effectively give the green light to relatives to help desperately ill loved ones to die.
A final version of the Starmer guidelines is to be published next month but critics say the DPP’s aim is for Parliament to make assisted suicide legal.
The motion – put down by former home office minister Ann Widdecombe – has support from pro-life MP’s on both sides. It said: ‘His guidelines jeopardise the right to life of the vulnerable sick and disabled.’ The MPs acted as right-to-die campaingner Debbie Purdy called for legislation to ensure no more prosecutions of people such as Mrs Gilderdale.
The multiple sclerosis sufferer won a landmark ruling last year after asking whether her husband could lawfully help her travel to Switzerland to die.
Judges told Mr Starmer to publish guidelines on when he would prosecute for assisted suicide.
Mrs Gilderdale fits all of the conditions for non-prosecution. ME sufferer Lynn took an overdose of morphine in December 2008.”
I have tried unsuccessfully to find this article online, so have just quoted as read.
Perhaps for once, The Mail is giving a fair report?
Nikita – the article you have so kindly typed up reflects the growing sense of unease about the DPP’s actions.
There is much confusion as to what is and might be going on here. Let us remind ourselves of the facts:
KG certainly assisted her daughters suicide, and may have killed her. That gave rise to two charges: one for assisting suicide, and the second for attempted murder.
KG pleaded guilty to assisting suicide, and not guilty to attempted murder; at trial, she was acquitted of the latter charge.
Last September, the DPP issued new guidelines outlining when prosecution for assisting suicide would be unlikely to occur. KG met the non-prosecution criteria, but was still charged.
Despite the fact that KG admitted the charge of assisting suicide, she was still charged with attempted murder.
Now, the interesting thing about Widdecombe’s EDM – see here – is that it is about, and only about, the assisted suicide charge. The attempted murder charge is not mentioned – yet the furore has been mostly about the attempted murder charge.
But – hang on – surely a woman as formidable as Ann Widdecombe could not be getting murder and suicide mixed up? But then, perhaps she could. Others certainly have.
Has, Dr No wonders, the cunning DPP thrown up a successful smoke-screen that has confused even the great and the good?
Could it be that the DPP – said to be keen to relax the law on assisted suicide – wanted to force the spot-light off the assisted suicide charge; and what better way to do that than by adopting a graver, more sensational additional charge – one of attempted murder? The trial was bound to produce a mass of indignation, and ‘love in the heart’ sympathy for KG. An air of clemency would prevail, and with the tide flowing in the direction of leniency, the admitted charge of assisting suicide could quietly be disposed of with the most lenient of sentences.
A cynical manipulation of public sentiment? We shall probably never know. But – Dr No can’t help noting – what better climate could there be to propose a formal relaxation of the law on assisted suicide?
Hey, Dr No,
You are showing the conspiracy trait that is endemic among witches cats.
Though in this instance, who can blame you?
Witch Doctor – Dr No merely wonders – for now.