David and Gillian March
Suicide Helper Walks Free
Updated: 12:32, Thursday October 19, 2006
A man who helped his sick wife to commit suicide has walked free from court with a nine-month suspended prison sentence.
David March, 57, had pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to aiding and abetting the suicide of Gillian, who had multiple sclerosis.
The court heard that Mrs March, 59, of Caterham, Surrey, had tried to kill herself on a number of occasions because of her health.
The court was told that he returned home to find Mrs March in a wheelchair, having taken Valium and with a plastic bag over her head.
He admitted to police that he tightened a string around the bag and she died half an hour after he arrived.
Passing sentence at the Old Bailey, Judge Brian Barker told March: “You were a husband who not only had a deep love for his wife but who displayed a selfless devotion to her.
“Society may understand your acts but cannot condone them.”
Outside court, March said: “I just want to be left alone to get on with my life.”
He had originally been charged with murder but his plea to the lesser offence was accepted after a pathologist said it was not certain that Mrs March would have survived if he had not tightened the string.
The sentence was welcomed by the pressure group Dignity In Dying.
But the British Council of Disabled People said: “What kind of message is this sending out to society where it is perceived to be easier to kill a disabled person rather than support them to live with dignity?”
Should he go free ??
