The relaxation of the current law on assisted suicide could be exploited by relatives to kill their burdensome elderly, warns Britain’s most senior chief constable.
Barbara Wilding, 59, the Chief Constable of South Wales Police and first woman to hold the post, says that changing the law could lead to abuse as the elderly population continues to grow and that the police would have to be ‘very careful’ to make sure the law ‘does not become a way of getting rid of a burden’. She says she would watch any change in the legislation ‘very carefully’.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph she said: ‘Elderly abuse is something that we have yet to really grasp. It is one of the things that I think will be the next social explosion.’
She said abuse could ‘range from the violent through to the psychological — not providing the medical care at the right time, not looking after people to their needs and not recognising that they are valuable members of society’.
‘I worry about some of the infrastructures to cope with older people who need caring for and who monitors them if they are cared for at home,’ she added.
Mrs Wilding drew comparisons with the first discovery of widespread child abuse in Britain in the 1970’s, and told the newspaper that the abuse of the elderly was ‘the same sort of social issue — it can be covered up and the victims do not have a voice.’
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Keir Starmer QC, is currently working on a policy to clarify whether people should be prosecuted for aiding a suicide following a landmark ruling by the Law Lords.
Multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy, 46, from Bradford, brought a case against the head of the Crown Prosecution Service to ascertain whether her husband would be charged should he help her commit suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich.
It has been reported that Mr Starmer’s guidelines would apply to people who helped loved ones die in Britain as well as those who travelled abroad.
Baroness Ilora Finlay of Llandaff, a Professor in Palliative Medicine at Cardiff University and the Immediate-Past President of the Royal Society of Medicine, agreed with Mrs Wilding’s warning. She said:
'You have to remember that when people are ill it is very, very easy to influence the way that they feel about themselves.
'If someone is made to feel that they being a nuisance to the NHS, a nuisance to the state and their families are huffing and puffing, perhaps about care costs, perhaps because they want to have a little bit of inheritance, then that person could feel that not only are they a burden but they have a duty to die.'
(Click here to listen to the BBC interview with Baroness Finlay)
In 1971, Mrs Wilding started working at the Metropolitan Police where she served as an Operational Detective in London, and at New Scotland Yard. She became an Assistant Chief Constable at Kent Constabulary in 1994. In 1998, she transferred to the Metropolitan Police as Deputy Assistant Commissioner and served as Director of Strategic Resources and also Specialist Operations, where she commanded the Security and Protection Directorate, which included the protection of Ministers, the Royal Family, Special Branch, Heathrow Airport, covert intelligence and the Specialist Firearms Unit. She was appointed Chief Constable of South Wales Police on 1st January 2004 and was awarded the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) on 17th June 2006.
Mrs Wilding retires in December 2009 after a 42-year career in policing.
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In July 2009, the House of Lords rejected an amendment to the law on assisted suicide that would have legalised assistance with suicide in certain circumstances where the suicide took place abroad. Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, a Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and Chair of the Disability Committee leading on the EHRC Disability Programme, made a moving speech asking Peers to resist any change in the law. She said:
'Legalising premature death as a treatment option plants a seed of doubt about one’s right to demand help to live with dignity and undermines the state’s responsibility to ensure that all citizens can live with dignity.'
She said that the change in the law ‘would place a new and invidious pressure on disabled and terminally ill people who think that they are close to the end of their lives. Some will consider death as preferable to fighting for support to live with dignity. It will be the cheapest, quickest and simplest option. Think of older people who are anxious not to cause their families any distress.’
For the debate, see the House of Lords Hansard, columns 612 to 614, and the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph reports on Baroness Campbell’s testimony.
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