Two months after Beverly Sand was told that her oesophageal cancer was terminal, she took her life, alone when her husband was away for a couple of days. In a note she left him, she asked for forgiveness and told him: “You are the love of my life.”
Even though Peter Wilson could prove he was 120 miles away at the time of her death, he was questioned by police for seven hours, fingerprinted, photographed and swabbed for gunshot residue. No gun had been involved in Sand’s death.
“Within an hour and a half of discovering her body, I was in the police station. I was numb. At the time I most needed comfort and support, I was subjected to this really difficult experience,” said Wilson.
Wilson was not surprised that his wife had taken her own life, but he was in “complete and utter shock and distress” at the timing and manner of her death.
“She chose to take her life when I was away, so I couldn’t be implicated. I was denied being with her in her last moments. I believe she would not have taken her life this way if she had the option of an assisted death,” he said.
Sand, who died in November 2022, was one of between 300 and 650 terminally ill people who take their own lives each year, according to data gathered by Dignity in Dying. Ten times that number attempt suicide, the campaign group said.
A 2022 study by the Office for National Statistics found elevated rates of suicide in patients with severe health conditions one year after diagnosis.
People with a cancer with low survival rate, coronary heart disease, or chronic lung disease were at least twice as likely to take their life, the ONS said.
Dignity in Dying said the ban on assisted dying did not stop terminally ill people ending their lives, but forced many to find alternative ways. “This results in deaths that are needlessly violent, unsafe and damaging to those who are left behind,” said its 2021 report, Last Resort.
“Researching the most effective ways to die, arranging access to methods or sourcing equipment, trying to protect family members from being implicated in a crime, all while experiencing the limitations of a medical profession which has its hands tied by the current law, creates intense anxiety and dramatically reduces dying people’s quality of life.”
This month, on 29 November, MPs will debate and vote on a private member’s bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill adults with six months or less to live. Campaigners, both for and against the bill, are subjecting MPs to intense lobbying in the hope of persuading the undecided or changing some minds.
One of those who unsuccessfully tried to end his life was Robert Pawsey, who was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in 2018 when he was 77.
“He was a very active person. He didn’t sit around after retirement – he took up flying, volunteered with Amnesty and travelled the world,” said his daughter Liz Poole.
“A couple of years after his diagnosis, he suddenly got much worse. His energy levels dropped and he became quite depressed. By the beginning of 2022, he couldn’t take it any more.”
Pawsey took a large dose of stockpiled medication. “He just wanted to die, but it didn’t work.” The drugs induced psychosis, and he became “a shadow of his former self”. He died a few months later in “significant physical and mental distress,” said Poole.
“My dad had absolutely brilliant palliative care. That wasn’t the problem. If someone is going to die anyway, how are you helping them by keeping them alive? Some people say that legalising assisted dying isn’t safe, but it’s not safe now. Either people suffer badly or are forced to choose an unsafe option.”
Sand killed herself before the inevitable pain and suffering of oesophageal cancer really kicked in, said Wilson. “If she had known she could have an assisted death, I believe she wouldn’t have taken her own life when she did.”
She was, he said, “active, fit and healthy. She was full of life. She was a fiercely intelligent feminist, engaging, principled and very stylish. And the quality of her life was of the greatest importance to her. Life is precious, as she said in her last note to me.”
