Campaigners for and against euthanasia and assisted dying say the tragic case of Graham Mansfield - a husband who killed his terminally-ill wife 'in an act of love' after they agreed to a suicide pact - should wake-up national debate on the emotive and divisive issue.
MPs, said one campaign group, 'cannot ignore' the matter any longer, calling in the aftermath of the case for a public inquiry into the law as it stands. Assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in the UK, carrying a maximum jail sentence of 14 years.
Mr Mansfield, 73, who fell in love with his wife of 40 years Dyanne, 71, after they first met in a Wythenshawe pub on New Year's Eve in 1974, slit her throat in the garden of their home in Hale, Trafford, after the couple shared a last drink together.
After trying but failing to end his own life he was charged with her murder, but acquitted amid the glare of national publicity by a jury who instead found him guilty of her manslaughter. A judge in moving sentencing remarks spared him prison - saying he was entirely satisfied he 'acted out of love for your wife'.
Dyanne had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer; the court heard her husband agreed to the suicide pact 'on one condition'. "I said I would have to go with her. I said 'I can't live without you Dyanne'," Mr Mansfield told the Manchester Evening News in an interview hours after his release from custody. "In a funny way it gave me strength. I knew I was dying as well. I could focus on that." Dyanne, he said, was his whole world.
Imposing a suspended prison sentence, the judge quoted retired airport baggage handler Mr Mansfield's evidence back at him: "It was an act of love, of compassion, to end her suffering." Mr Mansfield, speaking tearfully on the steps of Manchester Crown Court, went on to call for a change in the law and for euthanasia to be legalised, saying the country would be a better place for it.
Campaigners say euthanasia is one of the country's most important taboos. Faith and religious groups - together with campaign groups - lead the case against assisted dying legislation, but there are groups and charities who call for a law change.
Campaign group Dignity in Dying said the Mansfield case was not an 'isolated tragedy' - but 'the latest in a series of suicides and suicide pacts involving terminally ill people under the UK's blanket ban on assisted dying'. Without reform to the law, they argued, the country would see more tragedies like it.
Sarah Wootton, its chief executive, sent her thoughts and sympathies to the Mansfield family and their loved ones. "Instead of a safe, legal option, dying people and their loved ones are being forced to resort to drastic measures, often in secret and without full knowledge of the support available to them," she told the M.E.N.
"In contrast an assisted dying law would include upfront safeguards to better protect people, and ensure anyone considering assisted dying was making a voluntary and fully informed decision, and receiving proper medical support.
"Mounting evidence has revealed the current law to be a serious patient safety risk to terminally ill people which forces loving family members to become criminals. Data from the Office for National Statistics has indicated that people with severe and potentially terminal health conditions are more than twice as likely to take their own life, and the Crown Prosecution Service has recognised that loved ones often feel they have no option but to step in to offer compassionate, but illegal, help.
"Without urgent reform we will certainly see more tragic cases like the Mansfields, but fortunately the clamour for change is louder than ever."
A law which would have given those with a terminal illness the right to die was rejected by MPs in 2015 - the Assisted Dying Bill rejected by 330 votes to 118. Tory MP Sir Graham Brady, Mr Mansfield's constituency MP, voted against the Bill, but it was backed by a number of Greater Manchester MPs including Labour's Lucy Powell.
But just last month the former health secretary, Matt Hancock, said MPs should have the opportunity to vote on whether assisted dying should be legalised in the UK. He called for a Commons vote as MPs debated a petition proposing that assisted dying should be legalised for 'terminally ill, mentally competent adults'. The petition, hosted on Parliament's website, received more than 155,000 signatures before it closed.
Mr Hancock said: "For 50 years we have had a legal choice over who to love, for a decade we have had a legal choice over who we can marry. So let’s have an informed debate over when the end is inevitable and when the pain is insufferable, how we die."
Some MPs said they had changed their stance over time. There were also calls for extra funding for palliative care, a point backed by the campaign group Care Not Killing.
On the flip side, the debate heard introducing legal assisted dying could be abused by people 'who want granny and grandpa to hurry up and die'. Conservative MP for Devizes, Danny Kruger, claimed legalising assisted dying could also lead to 'utilitarian' healthcare decisions being taken by doctors under pressure to bring down care costs.
But other MPs gave their backing to the proposals, with Conservative former minister Andrew Mitchell telling MPs: "I want this to change for my constituents, I want it for myself and I want it for those whom I love." Ms Wootton said MPs 'supportive of change outnumbered opponents by two to one' at the debate, adding there was 'clear cross-party backing for a health select committee inquiry on the issue'.
"MPs cannot ignore the matter of assisted dying any longer – nor do they want to," she told the M.E.N. "We need an inquiry to understand the failings of the current law, government time to develop and debate proposals for reform, and a free vote on putting right the wrongs of the status quo."
Dr Gordon Macdonald, Chief Executive of Care Not Killing, called the case 'deeply troubling and tragic'. It demonstrated, he said, why changing the law to legalise either assisted suicide or euthanasia in the UK 'would be very dangerous.
"It would place huge pressure, real or perceived on terminally ill, disabled people and those suffering conditions such as clinical depression or having suicidal thoughts to end their lives prematurely, exactly as we see in the handful of places that have legalised assisted suicide or euthanasia, said Dr Macdonald
"We need to care for people who are suffering, not encourage them or provide them with a mechanism to end their lives. This is why we champion the extension high quality palliative care to all those who need it and better support for their families.
"In the US State of Oregon, which has assisted suicide, six in 10 (59 per cent) of those ending their lives in 2019 cited the fear of being a burden on their families, friends and caregivers as a reason for seeking death and a further 7.4 per cent cited financial worries. There are other problems too.
"Legalising Physician Assisted Suicide also seems to normalise suicide in the general populations. Indeed, academics who looked at this emerging trend concluded that legalising assisted suicide was associated with an increase of 6.3 per cent in the numbers of suicides in Oregon, once all other factors had been controlled. Among over 65s the figure was more than double that.
"At the same time testimony from Professor Joel Zivot, casts doubt on the myth being put forward by those who want a change in the law that patients opting for the lethal cocktail of drugs die a quick and painless death. Evidence from Tennessee, which uses the same drugs to kill people on death row as the ones used in Oregon, suggest the inmates die from drowning in their own secretions or what doctors call a pulmonary oedema. The Professor goes on to explain why in US executions, even though the person is sedated first, before the lethal cocktail of drugs is administered, the authorities have to strap down both the person's hands and even their fingers to stop them moving.
"Buts it's not just in Oregon on the continent that we see problems. In Canada, last year 1,400 people who were euthanised cited loneliness as a reason. At the same time limits on who could be killed, the so-called safeguards have been eroded or scrapped and the Government has talked about the millions of dollars introducing euthanasia has saved regional health budgets. While in Belgium and the Netherlands a system designed for terminally ill mentally competent adults has been extended to children, disabled people, those with mental health problems (the fastest growing reason), even those who have not given their consent due to conditions such as dementia."
Trevor Moore, chairman of campaign group My Death, My Decision, said the circumstances of Mrs Mansfield's death showed 'how completely broken our current laws are'.
"If we had a compassionate assisted dying law she would have been spared a grim death - and Graham the appalling aftermath," he said. "We need a parliamentary inquiry immediately, so that our politicians can make informed decisions on this important matter of social justice."
YouGov polling conducted last year for the charity Dignity in Dying suggested 74 per cent of British people wanted Parliament to back a bill to legalise assisted dying at the time, and 70 per cent wanted to see assisted dying legalised by the next general election.
Responding to the debate last month, Justice Minister James Cartlidge said: "The Government’s view remains that any relaxation of the law in this area is an issue of individual conscience and a matter for Parliament to decide.
"To be clear, this does not mean Government does not care about the issue at hand, far from it. It is that the ultimate decision on whether to change the law is for Parliament to decide in the tradition of previous matters of conscience that have come before the House."
