Controversial: Euthanasia supporter Dr Philip Nitschke

A euthanasia campaigner nicknamed Dr Death is selling suicide kits disguised as equipment for home-brewing beer.

Dr Philip Nitschke, who calls for the legalisation of assisted suicide, sells the £257 kit on his brewing company’s website.

It can be used for brewing beer but Dr Nitschke has written a guidebook, also available online, that explains how people can use it to take their own lives.

Last night, anti-assisted suicide group Care Not Killing described the sale of the kits as ‘utterly deplorable’, and spokesman Alistair Thompson called for the police to investigate Dr Nitschke.

‘It’s deeply worrying because one suspects there will be no formal controls over who this kit is being sold to apart from the limit of needing a credit card to purchase it online,’ he said.

‘So this could be going to very vulnerable adults, some of them still teenagers, who are depressed for whatever reason and see this as a way of ending their lives.’

The former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, also condemned the sale of the equipment.

He said: ‘Any do-it-yourself kit for assisting in a suicide would be a violation of the law and, therefore, liable to prosecution.’

Assisted suicide is a criminal offence in the UK and carries a maximum jail sentence of 14 years. But Dr Nitschke has been selling the kit here for three years and describes it as ‘a quick and legal way of ensuring a peaceful death’.

The brewing equipment Dr Nitschke sells online

The Netherlands-based doctor was a GP in Australia but he burned his medical certificate following a legal dispute after he failed to refer to a psychiatrist a suicidal man who went on to kill himself.

Support for sufferers For confidential support on suicide matters, call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90. Advertisement

Dr Nitschke, who founded the euthanasia campaign group Exit International in 1997, plans to visit Britain next month to give a seminar on assisted suicide, where he may promote his kit.

He has said he would help anyone who wanted to take their own lives, ‘including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, the troubled teen’.

He insists ‘it should be the option of every rational adult to be able to peacefully end their life’.