A volunteer who accompanied a paralysed woman as she ended her life has said she would do the same again despite the ordeal she faced at the hands of the police.
Sue Lawford, 70, travelled to the Dignitas clinic with Sharon Johnston, 60, who had been paralysed in a fall, after the pair linked up via the assisted dying campaign group My Death, My Decision.
After setting off for the airport, Sharon started getting phone calls from police. And after the assisted death in Switzerland, Sue and a researcher who went with them were subjected to a six-month police probe.
Sue said: “Sharon’s last 24 hours were pretty stressful with the police and social services trying to intervene.
“What should have been calm and peaceful and her saying her last goodbyes… it was just high tension.”
“That really annoyed me, that kind of response. She was absolutely sharp as a tack. Thankfully… her actual death was incredibly calm and peaceful.”
Sharon’s final words, after drinking a life-ending drug, were: “This is a lovely feeling.”
Sue believes Sharon may have been treated differently because of her physical disability, explaining: “There was a feeling that she was potentially mentally or emotionally impaired.
A guideline document on assisted suicide investigations states: “Due to the sensitive nature of such an investigation, police should seek to interview such a suspect under caution as a voluntary attendee.”
Sue, however, was arrested at 5.30am. She was put in a police van while officers searched her home in Cardiff and seized her devices. Dyfed-Powys Police eventually dropped their investigation into the death of Sharon, who lived in Cardigan, south-west Wales.
Sue hopes she will never to have to visit the Dignitas clinic again, but said: “For the same reasons I felt compelled to help Sharon – whom I’d never met – I would have to say yes.”
Trevor Moore, chairman of My Death, My Decision, said: “Sue’s compassion should have been rewarded, not punished with a heavy-handed police investigation. This is why we need a compassionate assisted dying law.”
Helping a person end their life is punishable by up to 14 years in prison in England and Wales.
But the health and social care committee is compiling a report on assisted dying, after a public inquiry.
Opponents of the scheme say relaxing the law would lead to vulnerable people ending their lives to avoid becoming a burden.
Dyfed-Powys Police declined to comment.