The Judge deciding the case of a mother accused of murdering her brain-damaged son has said no-one has the ‘unfettered right’ to take the law into their own hands.
Judge Brian Barker QC told the Old Bailey jury to ‘put all emotion aside’ and take into account that ‘there is no concept in law of mercy killing’ when considering the case of Frances Inglis, who gave her son Tom, 22, a lethal heroin injection.
Mrs Inglis, 57, of Dagenham, denied murder and attempted murder, saying she did it ‘with love’ after Tom was left helpless when he suffered severe head injuries in an accident in July 2007.
The Judge however said that such actions are still regarded as killing.
‘People hold strong views all across the spectrum but we are not debating it here. We are not here to send a message,’ he said.
‘Our laws are designed to protect us all within society and particularly to protect the weak. We must make it clear that there is no concept in law of mercy killing. It is still a killing no matter how kind the intention,’ he added.
Summing up the case, Judge Barker, the Common Serjeant of London, said the background of ‘tragedy and grief’ will have struck a chord with all who had heard it.
‘It would be extraordinary if we didn't feel empathy with the family and what Mrs Inglis had to face.
‘You must put all emotion aside when you approach your task. Difficult though it is, you must stand back and look at the full picture,’ he told the jury.
The prosecution argued from an early stage that after Tom had been injured, Mrs Inglis decided her son would not want to live the life he was leading.
During the trial a picture emerged of a mother who believed she knew what was best for her brain-damaged son.
Mrs Inglis, who was doing a nursing diploma, refused to believe an encouraging prognosis from one of the doctors at Queen’s Hospital in Romford, Essex. As she sat by her son's hospital bedside, she said that all she saw ‘was horror, pain and tragedy.’
The Judge told Mrs Inglis she has to serve a minimum of nine years in jail.
George Pitcher, Religion Editor of Telegraph Media, wrote:
‘Lobbyists for the introduction of assisted suicide and euthanasia in the UK must bear a good deal of the responsibility for introducing the idea to the public consciousness that so-called ‘mercy killings’, which have no standing in British law, are in some way okay so long as the words ‘compassion’ and ‘loved ones’ can be trotted out.
‘The truth is that murder is clearly defined on the statute book. To undermine that in the legislature with the concept of ‘mercy killing’ is to introduce a nightmare world in which some lives are deemed inferior to others, in which the able-bodied determine the life-span of the disabled and terminally ill, in which doctors and nurses are compromised by the administration of death as a clinical practice and in which ‘loved ones’ potentially can be despatched by wicked relatives when they become inconvenient and burdensome. The law as it stands should protect us from that.’