The Special Crime Division of the Crown Prosecution Service has advised Nottinghamshire Police that television presenter Ray Gosling should be prosecuted for wasting police time. Mr Gosling was served with a summons for that offence today. Helen Allen, senior lawyer in the Special Crime Division, said: "Mr Gosling was arrested by Nottinghamshire Police on suspicion of murder following his appearance in a television programme in which he confessed to killing a former lover who was dying of AIDS. "He was interviewed several times by the police and detectives conducted an extensive investigation into the allegation. The police were in contact with the CPS during the investigation and a file was passed to the Special Crime Division on 28 July 2010.
BBC television presenter Ray Gosling will be charged with wasting police time, following a claim he made on air that he smothered his terminally ill lover. The Crown Prosecution Service said Mr Gosling should be charged over claims he made to BBC Breakfast's Bill Turnbull in February, after first making the claim in a BBC Inside Out documentary broadcast on 15 February. Mr Gosling said he was sorry if there had been any hurt caused to his former lover - who had been dying of Aids - or his family.
The Society for Old Age Rational Suicide was established in Brighton and Hove, by several right-to-die activists and humanists, in 2009. Presently, the main objective of SOARS is to begin a campaign to get the law eventually changed in the UK so that very elderly, mentally competent individuals, who are suffering unbearably from various health problems (although none of them is “terminal”) are allowed to receive a doctor’s assistance to die, if this is their persistent choice. Surely the decision to decide, at an advanced age, that enough is enough and, avoiding further suffering, to have a dignified death is the ultimate human right for a very elderly person. Although there is much public support for this to become lawful in the UK, it is unlikely that Parliament (either at Westminster or in Edinburgh) will change the law, to help those who are terminally ill, for at least five to ten years.
Elderly people should be allowed to end their lives with the help of a doctor even if they are not terminally ill, according to a new campaign group that claims to have widespread support. The Society for Old Age Rational Suicide, led by a former GP known as “Dr Death”, says that pensioners should have the human right to declare “enough is enough” and die with dignity.
Two people have been arrested on suspicion of assisting the suicide of a disabled man from South Tyneside. Retired engineer Douglas Sinclair, 76, had been suffering from the debilitating disorder multiple system atrophy, his solicitor said. Christopher Potts said Mr Sinclair died in Zurich on 28 July. He arranged his death through the Swiss assisted-suicide organisation Dignitas. The woman and man who were arrested have been bailed as inquiries continue. Mr Sinclair, a father-of-one, had had the condition for two years. He was being cared for at a care home in Jarrow, South Tyneside, when his conditioned worsened earlier this year.