T here are a vast number of ‘… cides’ in the English language, such as infanticide (the killing of a child); genocide (the killing of a cultural group or genus of people); and regicide (the killing of a sovereign or regent), with the word ending coming from the Latin ‘caedere’ , meaning ‘to kill’ . Students of the criminal law most commonly find themselves concerned with homicide, ie, the killing of another human being; however, suicide – killing oneself – also has some key implications within our legal system.
Since the enactment of the Suicide Act (SA) 1961, suicide (or, indeed, attempting the same) has no longer been an offence in English Law. However, despite this involvement in the suicide of another does have the potential to lead to a prosecution: the two key offences here are assisted suicide and voluntary manslaughter.
Perhaps the most high profile of the various suiciderelated offences is that of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another, contrary to SA s2 as amended by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Cases, such as those of Dianne Pretty and Debbie Purdy, raised awareness of the issues that this offence brings into focus (see R (Pretty) v Director of Public Prosecutions and Secretary of State for the Home Department (interested party) [2001] UKHL 61 and Purdy v Director of Public Prosecutions [2009] UKHL 45 respectively). Crucially, as stated in section 2(4) of the SA, and unlike the majority of crimes, a prosecution for this offence can only be pursued with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
Dianne Pretty
Dianne Pretty was suffering from motor neurone disease and sought the DPP’s confirmation that when and if she decided to bring her life to an end - and should she need the assistance of her husband to commit suicide - he would not be prosecuted. Having been refused that assurance by the lower courts, Dianne Pretty took her case to the then House of Lords, which confirmed that the DPP’s denial was correct.
Debbie Purdy
Debbie Purdy, who had multiple sclerosis (MS), brought her case with a similar goal as Dianne Pretty. However, unlike the latter she was not seeking a guarantee; instead, Debbie Purdy wished for clarification on the DPP’s policy considerations in deciding whether or not to prosecute in such circumstances. In essence, Debbie Purdy wanted to weigh up her options, and therefore be able to make an informed decision.
As a result of Purdy v Director of Public Prosecutions, the DPP published Policy for prosecutors in respect of cases of encouraging or assisting suicide.* This guidance includes a list of the public interest factors which would lead towards prosecution, such as the victim being under 18; any suggestion that the victim’s decision to take their own life had not been wholly their own; and where the suspect was a medical professional responsible for the victim’s care. The policy also lists those public interest factors that would favour a decision not to prosecute, such as where the suspect’s sole motivation in assisting was compassion; and where the suspect had attempted to dissuade the victim from their planned action.
This policy does not, of course, alter the substance of the law in any way: encouraging or assisting in the suicide of another remains a crime. The DPP will, before bringing a case to court, consider whether or not there is sufficient evidence and whether or not it is in the public interest to prosecute, just as the Crown Prosecution Service does for all other crimes.
In addition to this crime, though, killing another ‘in pursuance of a suicide pact’ is one of the three special defences set out originally in the Homicide Act (HA) 1957. These defences only apply to a charge of murder, and only have the effect of reducing the charge to one of voluntary manslaughter.
While the defendant has still completed the component parts that make up a murder charge, ie, they have killed another human being (the actus reus) and have done so with either an intention to kill or an intention to cause grievous bodily harm (the mens rea), the court accepts that their defence makes them slightly less culpable for the killing, and the charge (and, more than likely, their sentence) will be reduced accordingly.
The suicide pact defence is very much the less-popular younger sibling as far as criminal law students are concerned: the defence is rarely studied in any more detail than simply knowing its name, with the focus (quite rightly) on the special defences of diminished responsibility and loss of self-control (formerly provocation).
Textbooks, in turn, often contain little more than some of the detail from the statute. Therefore, to have some real-life cases to consider in this respect would be useful.
Lisa Paget
Lisa Paget died in 2002 as a result of jumping from a tower block in Cardiff. The alleged intention had been that she and her boyfriend, Lee Morgan, would jump together; however, he had failed to do so. Subsequently, Lee Morgan was sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983; he gave no evidence at the inquest into Lisa Paget’s death.
Dr Willie Stanton
In 2009, 79-year-old Dr Willie Stanton was arrested on suspicion of murder after his wife was found suffocated. The couple had each pulled bags over their heads, following Dr Stanton’s diagnosis with a terminal illness. However, the bag that Dr Stanton used was too small in size for him to succeed in his ambition. The case never proceeded to court. Dr Stanton died of bone cancer in January 2010.
No criminal charges were pursued in either case: the only outcome was a verdict of suicide from the coroner’s inquest into the respective deaths. In the case of Lisa Paget, the coroner acknowledged that it had not been able to determine the extent to which ‘any other person’ had been involved in her death. This latter point, then, raises another issue for such cases, namely, evidence, not least because at least one of the key witnesses will be unavailable at the trial.
Claire Darbyshire
This point about a lack of evidence can be seen in the case of Claire Darbyshire who, on 2 September 2015, killed her father, Brian Darbyshire, a 67-year-old MS sufferer. At her trial in February 2016, Claire Darbyshire’s defence team argued that the murder charge should be reduced to manslaughter as she had killed her father as part of a failed suicide pact.
So, given that HA s4(2) places the burden of proof on the defendant, what was Claire Darbyshire required to prove if she was to succeed in getting the reduced charge? Section 4(3) of the HA defines a suicide pact as being ‘a common agreement between two or more persons having for its object the death of all of them, whether or not each is to take his own life, but nothing done by a person who enters into a suicide pact shall be treated as done by him in pursuance of the pact unless it is done while he has the settled intention of dying in pursuance of the pact’ . This section of the HA makes a crucial distinction between this ‘offence’ and the crime of the assisted suicide; the defendant’s intention was to die as well as to assist their accomplice in his/her death.
Claire Darbyshire’s trial revealed that Brian Darbyshire had developed MS in 1985. Eventually he became bedridden, and his daughter became his sole carer in 2014. The pair were alleged to have each taken an overdose on 1 September; however, when this failed to work Claire Darbyshire suffocated her father. Police discovered Brian Darbyshire’s body on 10 September, with handwritten notes nearby. Claire Darbyshire alleged that her father had asked her to end his life, and that once he had died she would have nothing left to live for.
The jury clearly did not believe her: it rejected the less serious options of manslaughter and assisted suicide, and instead returned a murder verdict. Crucial points would appear to have been the fact that Brian Darbyshire had never tried to kill himself previously; had never suggested to any of his nurses that he wished to die; and had never complained about any pain. Furthermore, the defendant had fled the scene, and had failed to mention her father’s death - or their supposed agreement - until several days later.
Wayne St Clair
To end, there is the case example of a conviction for assisted suicide, which concerned 44-year-old Wayne St Clair. In 2009, he was jailed for 15 months after pleading guilty to assisting his girlfriend Christine Needham’s death as a result of a failed suicide pact. They had each participated in the consumption of a ‘cocktail of drugs’ , which had succeeded in killing Christine Needham alone.
*Available at: http://tinyurl.com/y7jvl3d