“A victory for compassion, but Parliament must act on assisted dying”

Today, Thursday 5th October 2023, the CPS has published its updated prosecution guidance on homicides, specifically with regard to deaths as a result of ‘mercy killings’ and suicide pacts following a 12-week public consultation.

The draft guidance sets out factors prosecutors should take into account in favour and against prosecution in these cases, most of which are similar to the updated guidance issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions in 2009 for prosecutions under the 1961 Suicide Act for ‘assisting or encouraging a suicide’. The updated guidance says that a prosecution is less likely if the deceased individual had reached a voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision that they wished for their life to end and if the suspect was motivated wholly by compassion and if their assistance may be characterised as reluctant, in the face of significant emotional pressure due to the victim’s wish for their life to end.

In January 2020, Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for a change in the law to allow assisted dying as a choice for terminally ill, mentally competent adults subject to strict safeguards, launched Compassion Is Not A Crime, a campaign led by loved ones who have been criminalised under UK laws on assisted dying. The campaign garnered support from Parliamentarians and Police and Crime Commissioners, many of whom wrote to the former Justice Secretary Robert Buckland expressing their concerns that the current laws around assisted dying are not fit for purpose.

The campaign was led by Joy Munns, daughter of Mavis Eccleston, who was charged with murder and manslaughter after her terminally ill husband Dennis asked her to help him end his life. Dennis and Mavis attempted to take their lives together in February 2018, but Mavis later recovered and was charged. In September 2019 she was unanimously acquitted by a jury of both charges. At the time the CPS clarified that it was in the public interest to prosecute Mavis. The Eccleston family has since campaigned alongside Dignity in Dying for a change in the law to allow dying people the choice of an assisted death, subject to safeguards including strict eligibility criteria, judicial approval and medical oversight.

Sarah Wootton, Chief Executive of Dignity in Dying, said:

“We strongly welcome the new guidance issued by the CPS today, which distinguishes between malicious homicide and compassionate assistance to die and makes clear that acts of love and compassion should be treated differently to serious crimes by the criminal justice system.  This is a victory for Dignity in Dying’s Compassion is Not a Crime campaign and today’s guidance is a major milestone on the road to assisted dying law reform.

“The CPS has performed a vital role in trying to mitigate the cruelty caused by the blanket ban on assisted dying, but the fact is that our current laws are not fit for purpose. MPs must do the right thing and introduce safeguarded, compassionate assisted dying laws.  This would provide choice and control for dying people, in addition to adding safeguards where there currently are none. As parliaments in Scotland, the Isle of Man and Jersey take the lead on giving this choice to their citizens, Westminster must grasp this necessary reform after the General Election.”

Mavis Eccleston helped her husband of 60 years, Dennis, to end his own life and was charged in 2019 with murder and manslaughter, ultimately being acquitted by a jury after an 18 month court battle.  Mavis’s daughter Joy Munns said:

“What we really need is an assisted dying law for this country. This new guidance might have saved our Mom from a trial, but it wouldn’t have saved dad from a bad death. Dad wanted a proper choice, to die on his own terms with his family around him. But he knew he couldn’t have that, and so had to turn to Mom for help, forcing her to break the law when she’d never done so in her life. For months she tried to dissuade him, but Dad was dying in agony of bowel cancer and on the night he died he was howling like a wounded animal. The law put my parents in an impossible position. It must be properly reformed so that people like Dad can have the choice that so many dying people want.”

The CPS guidance comes as fresh evidence of the harm inflicted on dying people and their loved ones by the UK’s blanket ban on assisted dying was revealed in a new report by Dignity in Dying published last month. The research revealed that the average cost of travelling abroad for an assisted death in Switzerland has increased by £5,000 to an average of £15,000 in the past 5 years – a staggering 50%.¹ This option is out of reach for the majority of people in England and Wales, almost two-thirds (63%) of whom could not afford this if they needed it.

In the absence of safeguarded choice in this country, hundreds of terminally ill people every year resort to taking their own lives at home and thousands suffer as they die despite the best efforts of end-of-life care.

The report’s findings increase the growing pressure on MPs to bring an end to the UK’s harmful ban on assisted dying and introduce the type of strictly safeguarded, compassionate law for terminally ill people that exists in many other parts of the world, including in all states in Australia, across New Zealand and parts of the US.

Nearly 8 in 10 people (78%) in England and Wales say they would support the introduction of a law that would enable terminally ill, mentally competent adults this choice – the legislation Dignity in Dying campaigns for.

This comes as the Health and Social Care Select Committee prepares to report on the first ever Commons inquiry into assisted dying, launched in December, while separate bills are already making progress in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man.

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For further information and interview requests with case studies and Dignity in Dying spokespeople, please contact Molly Pike, Media and Campaigns Officer at Dignity in Dying, on 07929 731181 or email: molly.pike@dignityindying.org.uk.