Families could still face prosecution under assisted suicide guidelines

The Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC has published his final guidance on the circumstances in which someone may be charged for helping another person to die.

The eight-page guidance makes clear that someone who helps another person to die is unlikely to face trial if the 'victim' had reached a voluntary and informed decision to commit suicide and the suspect was driven wholly by compassion.

Greater emphasis is placed on the motivation of the suspect than the health of the ‘victim’ and cases will be considered on an individual basis.

The guidance removes an exemption to prosecution for family members, meaning that they could still be charged if they assist a loved one in ending their own life.

Mr Starmer insisted the guidance did not open the door to euthanasia or mercy killings and did not change the law, under which assisted suicide is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

The chief prosecutor was asked to draw up the guidance after multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy won her legal battle for clarification on the law in the House of Lords last year. She asked to know if her husband would be charged if he helped her to end her life.

The guidelines were released together with a 45-page summary of some 5,000 responses to the interim policy published last September.

They were welcomed by the Church of England's Mission and Public Affairs Division, which said it was right that the guidelines had not drawn a clear line allowing anybody assisting a suicide to know in advance whether they would be prosecuted.

It reiterated the Church's opposition to the "tragedy" of assisted suicide, stressing the need for compassionate care of the dying instead.

"We empathise with those who struggle with their own illness and suffering as well as with those who struggle with the illnesses and suffering of those they love most," it said.

"We believe, however, that the most compassionate course is to provide love, support and the best possible medical and nursing care, not to acquiesce in requests for assisted suicide.

"Compassion does not always mean saying ‘yes’. Protecting the vulnerable, ensuring that every life is appreciated as being valuable and maintaining the indispensible bond of trust between health professionals and patients outweighs arguments in favour of individual choice.

"In a truly caring and moral society, increased autonomy for the few ought never to be pursued at the cost of placing an increased burden on the many."

High profile figures have raised concerns that the seriously ill will feel under pressure to end their own lives. Writing in The Daily Telegraph yesterday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said developments in palliative care in the last few decades had weakened the case for legalising assisted suicide.

“The law – together with the values and standards of our caring professions – supports good care, including palliative care for the most difficult of conditions, and also protects the most vulnerable in our society,” he said.

“For let us be clear: death as an option and an entitlement, via whatever bureaucratic processes a change in the law might devise, would fundamentally change the way we think about mortality.

“The risk of pressures – however subtle – on the frail and the vulnerable, who may feel their existences burdensome to others, cannot ever be entirely excluded. And the inevitable erosion of trust in the caring professions – if they were in a position to end life – would be to lose something very precious."