A 73-year-old pensioner has been sentenced in England for helping his terminally ill wife die
Diane and Graham Mansfield had just celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary when they learned in September 2020 that she had lung cancer. The doctors give her only a few months to live, and she also feels that there is probably really no way out this time. In 1999, Diane was first diagnosed with bladder cancer, but underwent treatment and things were under control. Five years later, one of her kidneys had to be removed.
With the new scary diagnosis, although the chances are minimal, she undergoes chemotherapy again, but her body refuses to accept the treatment. “She had a large growth on her neck that was pressing on her and she couldn’t feed herself. “He started taking painkillers, but even they were difficult to swallow,” husband Graham told the Daily Mail. 71-year-old Diane has spent a lot of her life in hospital and she just doesn’t want her last days to be like that. So she asks her husband to kill her when things get too much to bear. Graham, 73, promises to do so, but on the condition that he leaves this world with her.
They agree that it should be, and begin frantically planning how to make it happen. They give a large part of their belongings to charity. They update their will. Graham managed to withdraw £60,000 from his savings account in installments so that their siblings would not pay inheritance tax on it when they received it.
They discuss a suitable place to commit suicide. They choose a lane where they have regularly cycled. When they go to see her, Diane notices that there are cameras nearby, and they give up. So they stop at their own garden, and that they will do it with a knife. They have not only determined the time, but it is coming much faster than they expect. Diane is invited for another medical examination, but she refuses to go. “He told me: I can’t do it, I don’t have the strength to undress for the scanner. I’ve had enough. It’s time,” the husband recalls. Then he cancels the regular deliveries of milk, newspapers, empties the fridge and fills the bird feeders, things he usually does when they go on a field trip. The two have no children and aim to take at least four trips a year after retirement. Graham usually plans and organizes everything for them. So even now he tries to think of the upcoming as their last journey.
The last hours before him are harrowing. No farewell dinner because Diane can’t eat. She wants a glass of wine, which she takes a few sips of while her husband grabs a beer to keep the tradition of evening sweet talk. However, this time is different. There is no laughter from the memories of trips and holidays, rather it is an assessment of their whole life. They cry together several times.
The next day, the husband sets about writing obituary letters to his sister and the police. He signs them personally. Later this will turn out to be a big mistake, but then he doesn’t think about any future at all. When night falls, he helps his wife put on her coat, turns off the alarm and the lights, and the two of them head to the most sheltered part of their garden. “I was supporting her to walk because she was so weak. She said, “I won’t make a sound.” And he really didn’t,” recalls Graham with tears in his eyes.
They agreed on how it would be done – she would face forward and he would be behind her as he cut her throat. It will then stab its own. The husband does everything as planned, but does not die even after reaching the veins of his hands. After 12 hours of agony, he decides to call the police, as he is afraid that his sister may find him in this state, because every morning she calls them and comes to see them.
When the police teams arrive, he asks them to just let him die, but the protocol for such cases does not allow for such an option. Graham was rescued in hospital and then arrested and put on trial for his wife’s murder. Which is not surprising, because there is no evidence of her will. Obituaries are signed only by the husband. He explains to the court that he was trying to take the burden off her for the end of their lives, and he never thought it would matter. “Maybe it would have been better for me if I had made a video, but I wasn’t thinking about court or prison. I would have been dead,” says the 73-year-old man.
All the neighbors and relatives, even Diane’s brother, testify in his favor. He is described as a loving husband who would do anything to ease his wife’s pain. “If I could put Diane on a plane to Switzerland, where assisted euthanasia is allowed, I would. If someone had offered us an injection, we would have accepted it. “We could have gone to bed and cuddled and done it in a more humane way, but we had no choice because the law in the UK doesn’t allow that,” explains Graham. When the judge asks him why he chose such a violent method after his wife had between 2 and 4 weeks to live, he replies: “She asked me and left it to me to organize it. It’s always been that way between us. When we went on vacation, he would say, “Graham, you did the research and then you just presented me with the options.” And we didn’t have many options. The knife was the only thing I could think of”.
The court accepted that he acted out of love for his wife, but still gave him a 2-year suspended sentence. Delivering his judgment, Judge Gooss told Mansfield: “The circumstances of this case are a tragedy for you and the likes of which the court has never faced.” His defense described such prosecutions as a waste of time and a waste of taxpayers’ money, and further evidence of the need to allow assisted euthanasia in Britain.
“Diane would be horrified if she found out I was convicted. All I did was keep the promise I had made to my wife. If it breaks the law, then it’s wrong,” Graham points out. He has scattered his wife’s ashes in the garden of their family home, as was her wish.
Following their harrowing story, new guidance has been issued on how law enforcement agencies in England should deal with such mercy killings. One of them emphasizes that the public interest must be remembered.
Austria has allowed assisted euthanasia as a last resort
Since this year, a law has come into effect in Austria that allows terminally ill people to request help to end their lives. This became possible after the Constitutional Court of the country overturned the ban on euthanasia. However, the decision emphasized that killing a person at his request remains illegal.
Therefore, it was necessary to determine special procedures for the implementation of assisted euthanasia. According to them, this will only be allowed to adults who are terminally ill and are able to prove that they have made a conscious decision to end their life. Each individual case will be considered by at least two doctors, one of whom must be a specialist in palliative care. The procedure will take between 2 and 12 weeks, and the person can cancel it at any time. However, if he decides to finalize it, he must declare his will to a lawyer or a notary, who will direct him to a specialized pharmacy from which he can obtain a lethal substance.
The Austrian authorities have also provided additional funds for palliative care to avoid situations where people choose to kill themselves because they cannot afford someone to help them in their last days.
Until now, assisted suicide was only legal in Switzerland and decriminalized in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain. But a growing number of countries are debating whether it should be allowed in certain cases where the suffering of terminally ill people is excessive. According to human rights activists, the refusal to end their suffering violates their human rights and dignity. To do so, some people are forced to go to Switzerland, which is the only country in Europe that allows assisted euthanasia to be performed on foreign nationals as well.
–
