From: Daily Telegraph

Guidelines on assisted suicide law will be published this week by Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, to clarify when people were likely to be prosecuted.

He confirmed yesterday that a key factor would be whether anyone helping in the suicide stood to gain financially, as The Daily Telegraph disclosed on Saturday.

Mr Starmer said assisted suicide would remain an offence as the statutory law was unchanged but that the guidelines were a “workable model” for the 1961 Suicide Act. “Things have moved on since the 1960s and I think the public attitude to assisting suicide has changed in the intervening period,” he said.

His announcement came after a legal battle won by Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis. She welcomed the clarification, saying that it allowed her to make “an informed choice” about her future. “I will know in advance what choices I can make to make sure anyone who helps me is not prosecuted. I think it’s also really good that if anyone has a malicious intention they will be more likely to be prosecuted,” she said.

Sarah Wootton, the chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said the guidelines would represent “a significant breakthrough in our campaign for greater choice and control at the end of life”.

Dr Peter Saunders, of Care Not Killing, a group seeking to ensure that rules on assisted suicide are not weakened, said of the guidelines: “We would not expect that they will offer immunity from prosecution for assistance with suicide in particular circumstances.”

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, urged Mr Starmer to “err on the side of being very, very cautious”. “I would not want to live in the kind of society where elderly people were pressurised to take their own life to make it easier for their families,” he said.

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