'We wouldn't treat a dog so badly': Nick Ross's fury over law which forced terminally ill friend abroad to die



Crimewatch presenter worked with Geraldine McClelland who ended her life at Swiss clinic

Ross: 'Never let organised religion be a trump card to imprison free spirits like Gerry in its own dogmas'

Former BBC producer attacked law making it illegal for her family to help her to die in this country

Assisted suicide a criminal offence in England and Wales

Baroness Finlay of Living And Dying Well: 'There was no reason why this lady could not die at home with her family around her, especially as Britain has internationally renowned palliative care'



The UK would not treat a dog as badly as it treated a woman who was forced to spend her final hours away from home after travelling to Switzerland to die, former BBC Crimewatch presenter Nick Ross said today.



Former TV producer Geraldine McClelland, 61, who was diagnosed with lung and liver cancer, called for a change to the law after travelling to a Dignitas clinic in Zurich where she died yesterday.

In a letter published hours after her death, Ms McClelland said she was not sad, but 'angry that because of the cowardice of our politicians I can't die in the country I was born in, in my own home'.

Scroll down for video



Presenter Nick Ross, who was friends with Ms McClelland after working on Crimewatch with her, said: 'Like Gerry, I take it to be self-evident that people facing imminent death should be allowed to manage the means and time of their departure'

'NO REASON WHY SHE COULD NOT DIE AT HOME AS BRITAIN HAS RENOWNED PALLIATIVE CARE'

Baroness Finlay (right) from public policy research body Living And Dying Well said 'this is a very sad story' but added: 'There was no reason why this lady could not die at home with her family around her, especially as Britain has internationally renowned palliative care.'

The professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University said: The law we have has a stern face but an understanding heart.

'Parliament has examined this subject in considerable depth, including the few jurisdictions where these practices have been legalised, and has concluded that legalisation is incompatible with protecting the public and especially its more vulnerable members.' Peter Saunders of Care Not Killing said publicity surrounding Miss McClelland's death were a carefully orchestrated move in collaboration with the pro-euthanasia lobby.

Care Not Killing, an alliance made up of human rights groups, disability rights organisations and palliative care groups, said coverage of her plight 'plays into the hands of pro euthanasia campaigners to whip up public support for a new assault on the Suicide Act ahead of the publication of the controversial Falconer Commission report in the New Year’.

He added: ‘British parliamentarians have repeatedly considered and debated these issues and have three times in the last five years rejected the legalisation of assisted suicide on grounds of public safety. 'They have rightly recognized that any change in the law would simply place more pressure on vulnerable people – those who are disabled, elderly, sick or depressed - to end their lives so as not to be a burden on carers, relatives or the state. Such a move would also be a green light to would-be abusers who have a financial or emotional interest in their deaths.

'‘Our priority at this time should instead be to resist any further weakening of the law and to make the very best palliative care, in which Britain is a world leader, more widely accessible and available so that patients can die as comfortably as possible at home or in hospital without fear.’



Ross, who was friends with Ms McClelland after working with her on Crimewatch, said: 'We wouldn't treat a dog so badly.



He said: 'Like Gerry, I take it to be self-evident that people facing imminent death should be allowed to manage the means and time of their departure.

'Yet Britain is so primitive and dichotomist in its thinking that suicide is only acceptable when one has what is normally a transient motive like depression.



'It is legal when able-bodied but not when someone is so ill they need assistance.'

In a defiant letter released hours after her death, Ms McClelland made a passionate plea for a change to British law to allow assisted suicide for the terminally ill.

Miss McClelland wrote: ‘I am not sad that I will die today. I am angry that because of the cowardice of our politicians I can’t die in the country I was born in, in my own home.’

The former producer of the BBC’s consumer affairs programme Watchdog attacked the law which would have made it illegal for her family to help her to die in this country.

Assisted suicide is a criminal offence in England and Wales, although new guidelines allow prosecutors to waive criminal proceedings if they believe families were acting out of genuine compassion.



Baroness Finlay from public policy research body Living And Dying Well said 'this is a very sad story' but added: 'There was no reason why this lady could not die at home with her family around her, especially as Britain has internationally renowned palliative care.'



The professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University said: The law we have has a stern face but an understanding heart.



'Parliament has examined this subject in considerable depth, including the few jurisdictions where these practices have been legalised, and has concluded that legalisation is incompatible with protecting the public and especially its more vulnerable members.'

In Miss McClelland's open letter, which was published in accordance with her wishes, she said: ‘I have chosen to travel abroad to die because I cannot have the death I want here in the UK.’

She said that she would have liked to have been able to choose to end her life ‘at home, with my family and friends around me’, but the law prevented her from doing so. Miss McClelland was understood to have died in Zurich yesterday with her brother and sister at her bedside.

She was diagnosed with terminal cancer after the disease spread from her breast to her lungs and liver two years ago. The lung cancer caused serious breathing problems and meant she was rarely able to leave her flat in White City, West London.

Writing for the Dignity in Dying blog, Nick Ross added: 'It sometimes seems that each concession to freedom in this country has had to be dragged out of a reluctant and controlling instinct that someone else knows best.'

Ross acknowledged the need for strong protections, but said: 'The principle is clear: self-determination is at the core of any concept of human rights. Just as no doctor or nurse should be obliged to have a hand in something they find morally objectionable, so no brave soul like Gerry should be abandoned to die at the choosing and timing of uncontrollable cancer.'

He went on: 'Never let organised religion be a trump card to imprison free spirits like Gerry in its own dogmas.



'No, bishops and legislators have no call to criticise Gerry. Rather they should heed her, set moral cowardice aside and make death for people like her more humane.

'I and others who knew Gerry won't rest until that day comes - and, of course, it will come.

'Meanwhile it is a dismal reflection on political slothfulness and lack of courage that thousands more Britons like Geraldine McClelland - unless they all slink off secretly to Dignitas as she did - will be deprived of a decent death.'



Deathbed letter: Geraldine McClelland ended her life at the controversial Dignitas clinic near Zurich, Switzerland, as she entered the final stages of her cancer battle

Miss McClelland, who also worked on programmes including Crimewatch, Food and Drink and Health Check, decided to travel abroad to die in September. She said she was relatively lucky because she could afford the clinic’s fees and could travel.

She urged readers of her letter not to feel sorry for her, but to ‘turn it into a fight to change the law’. Sheilagh Matheson, a life-long friend of Miss McClelland paid tribute to the ‘very independent, very determined’ woman.

The 60-year-old, from Northumberland, said: ‘She didn’t want to endure the physical degradation that she knew she would suffer.

‘It was not a spur-of-the moment decision. It was something she had thought about for many, many years.’ Miss McClelland’s letter was circulated by the Dignity in Dying campaign group, which wants a change in the law.

Assisting suicide carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison, although there have been no prosecutions since new guidelines were introduced last February, despite more than 40 cases being considered by prosecutors.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC said the motives of those assisting suicide would be at the centre of decisions over whether they should be prosecuted.

His intervention came after right-to-die campaigner Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, took her case to the Supreme Court, after the High Court and the Court of Appeal ruled it was for Parliament, not the courts, to change the law.