A writer who took her desperately ill mum to Dignitas in Switzerland so that she could end her life found herself at the centre of a police investigation. Mandy Appleyard said that during the time she thought she’d be “free to mourn” her mum, “police interviewed me under caution for two hours then chased me for statements, bank account records, medical notes and video recordings”.
The ‘right to die’ advocate said her ordeal with the police was “beyond terrifying” as the maximum custodial sentence if found guilty for assisting suicide is 14 years in prison.
Mandy’s mum was almost entirely unable to move, speak and relied on others for “everything” after a debilitating stroke. In a heartbreaking anecdote, Mandy writes that her mum even asked if she would “smother” her with a pillow to end her suffering.
Writing in the MailOnline, Mandy said: “The chain of events which upended our lives began on an ordinary Wednesday in May 2019, when my then 81-year-old mum, an elegant, fit woman, collapsed at the bus stop on her way to her weekly dance session.
“She had had a severe stroke, which left her paralysed down the left side of her body, unable to walk and with severely impaired speech.
“Arriving at her hospital bedside, seeing her pain, distress and confusion, was the worst moment of my life. Within two days, she had mimed slitting her throat and firing a gun at her head: a grim gesture to inform my sister and me, her only children, that she wished to die.
“Mum spent three months in hospital, undergoing physiotherapy and speech therapy. When her speech improved, she said she wanted to ‘die in Switzerland’. She had seen documentaries about assisted dying and, years earlier, said that was the end she would want if her health failed in any catastrophic way.”
Following Mandy’s mum ingestion of a deadly liquid in Zurich, after examinations of her medical records and two “long” interviews with a Swiss doctor, she and her sister returned to Britain.
However, “within two weeks” of her mum’s death, Mandy was being interviewed by Humberside Police.
The police enquiry rambled on for more than a year before the Crown Prosecution Service decided it was “not in the public interest to prosecute” her.
She branded the process “torture” and called for the legalisation of assisted dying in then UK, which enjoys overwhelming public support.
According to the latest YouGov data, 69 per cent of Brits back doctor-assisted suicide for patients suffering from terminal illness, whereas only 12 per cent disagree with it.
