From the moment that Daniel James drank the milky liquid and laid his head on
the pillow, there was no going back. Within minutes his eyes had closed, his
breathing slowed and then he was dead, his once-vigorous body peacefully but
lethally shut down by the barbiturate solution he had swallowed.
Such is the scene at Dignitas, the Swiss clinic that offers assisted suicide,
where Daniel died last month. Nan Maitland, who has previously accompanied
somebody committing suicide at Dignitas, said: “It takes place in a flat,
very plainly furnished and decorated but extremely nice. It is a new place,
as Dignitas moved recently.
“Daniel would have been lying on a bed I’m sure, and at the end of the bed is
a video camera to record everything to show the Swiss police that everything
happened according to his own wishes.
“Whoever held the drink for Daniel has to be a volunteer, as Swiss law states
that no one must profit from the death. He would be asleep within two or
three minutes and then dead probably within an hour. It is all done very
compassionately and goes at the pace which suits the person committing
suicide. The volunteer stays in the room with the family throughout and
afterwards calls the police doctor.”
In the room with the 23-year-old when he died were his parents Mark and Julie.
Their grief was tempered only by the knowledge that this was the end that
Daniel, who had been almost completely paralysed in a rugby accident, had
desperately and determinedly sought.
Yesterday Maitland, a supporter of the right to die movement who has spoken to
Julie James, said: “When Dan found out about Dignitas he knew that he wanted
to go. It was simply his decision and no one else’s.”
The manner of his death, however, has sparked controversy. Though in need of
24-hour care, Daniel had not been suffering from a terminal disease, and he
has been one of the youngest Britons to die at Dignitas.
His family issued a heartfelt statement. “His death was an extremely sad loss
for his family, friends and all those that care for him, but no doubt a
welcome relief from the ‘prison’ he felt his body had become.”
In addition, his mother said: “He couldn’t walk, had no hand function, but
constant pain in all of his fingers. He was incontinent, suffered
uncontrollable spasms in his legs and upper body and needed 24-hour care.
“While not everyone in Dan’s situation would find it as unbearable as Dan,
what right does any human being have to tell any other that they have to
live such a life, filled with terror, discomfort and indignity?”
Julie James said Dignitas had been her son’s only viable option. “Dan had
tried to commit suicide three times but this was unsuccessful due to his
disability. Other than to starve himself, to travel to Switzerland was his
only option.”
Though suicide is not illegal under British law, aiding or abetting suicide
is. At Dignitas, the key act, the proffering of the barbiturate, is done by
a volunteer and in Swiss jurisdiction assisted suicide is legal. Proving to
a court that relatives or friends who help suicidal people make the trip
abroad are guilty of a crime in the UK is something the director of public
prosecutions has not chosen so far to attempt.
However, Daniel’s parents, who run a stud farm near Worcester, have been
questioned by police officers from West Mercia constabulary, who are
conducting an investigation into the circumstances of his death. Were they
right to help? Was Daniel right to choose to die?
BORN into a rugby-loving household, Daniel’s passion for the game was matched
only by his talent for playing it. As well as turning out for a host of
clubs in his area, Daniel also played for the England under-16s and went on
to represent Loughborough university — helping to win back-to-back British
Universities Sport Association titles. He also played for the England
students’ team.
Unlike some ardent sportsmen, Daniel made sure he did not neglect his
education. He attended Chantry high school in Worcester and then Worcester
royal grammar school before studying construction engineering management at
university.
Alan Buzza, director of rugby at Loughborough, said: “Dan was a tough boy, he
had attitude, and was a good athlete and handler, whose constructiveness
with the ball also made him a good sevens player. He was a big character —
one of his nicknames was ‘Cowboy’ — and he was a guy who lived life to the
full and threw himself into everything wholeheartedly.”
He grew into a burly hooker — a player who is in the thick of things in the
scrum, at the centre of the front row with bodies all around. He was tipped
to make his mark as a professional. Then in March last year he was in a
scrum that collapsed during training with his team, Nuneaton.
As the pack collapses, the danger is that players in the front row, such as
the hooker in the middle, can take great weights upon their necks at an
awkward angle. Daniel’s spine was dislocated, trapping his spinal
cord. He was immediately paralysed.
He could not move from the chest down and lost the use of all his limbs.
Unable to make the enormous mental adjustment from robust athlete to
tetraplegic, he became convinced that he wanted to end his life. His
condition, however, meant that he could not commit suicide, unless he chose
the long and painful horrors of starvation. Instead, he wanted help.
To opponents of euthanasia, the help he should have had was not from Dignitas.
They believe he should have had help to rediscover hope and to live a new
kind of life.
“This young man, Daniel James, did not need help to kill himself: he needed
help to live with severe disability,” said Dr Peter Saunders of the Care Not
Killing Alliance, which campaigns against assisted suicide. “It is most
unfortunate that he fell into the hands of Dignitas when he did. He was
still very much in the acute stage of loss and he was also almost certainly
profoundly depressed. It is a terrible tragedy.”
Saunders added: “What is needed is a more positive outlook in caring for
people’s physical and spiritual needs. People can come through these
difficulties.”
One who did was Roger Addison, who, as a promising 21-year-old rugby player
for Pontypool, was paralysed in a scrum in 1966. Now 63, he resides at a
Cardiff hospital, attended by family and rugby friends. His determination to
live appears unwavering after 40 years of serious disability.
“Roger has this huge belief that he is here for a purpose,” said Arthur Crane,
an official at his old club. “He has been an inspiration.”
In Daniel’s dark days following his injury, however, he lost sight of any
purpose. Despite apparently regaining some slight feeling in his fingers, he
must have believed that his chances of ever achieving much movement again in
his body were minimal.
WHEN Dan’s parents returned to England after his death, they discovered
someone had raised his suicide with the authorities. Julie was upset and
angry. In a posting on a website, she wrote: “Whilst we were away some
‘well-meaning’ person involved with social services took it upon herself to
call the police.
“This person had never met Dan before or after his accident and obviously gave
no consideration for our younger daughters who had seen their big brother
suffer so much.
“I hope that one day I will get the chance to speak to this lady and ask if
she had a son, daughter, father, mother, who could not walk, had no hand
function, was incontinent, and relied upon 24-hour care for every basic need
and they had asked her for support, what would she have done?”
The right of someone to be master of their own destiny, even if others are
physically needed to help him or her carry it out, is central to the
Dignitas issue, say campaigners for the right to carry out assisted suicides.
Dr Michael Irwin, a retired GP, former medical director of the United Nations
and a past chairman of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (now renamed Dignity
in Dying), said: “It has to be his choice and I would not in any way condemn
this young man’s parents.”
Irwin, who has accompanied three people to the Dignitas clinic and says he is
planning to take a 90-year-old suicidal friend there in December, said it
was clear that the British authorities were content to take no action unless
there was evidence to show a death was anything other than voluntary.
Though he supports assisted suicide, he said: “The law in a sense should stay
as it is because there might be a case of someone who is tricked into going
to Dignitas by their relatives and therefore in that case police might feel
they should start an inquiry and take some action afterwards.”
Saunders, however, believes “we are on a slippery slope” towards too easily
condoning assisted suicide. “At Dignitas we started with people with cancer
and motor neurone disease, then we went to chronically ill people and those
with conditions such as diabetes or multiple sclerosis where their life
expectancy isn’t necessarily shortened.
“Now we are moving on to people with severe disabilities. It is turning into a
copycat scenario and it disturbs me. It is right for the police to
investigate these cases.”
But for Daniel’s parents, respecting his decision to die was, in the end, the
only thing they felt they could do. As Julie James poignantly put it: “Our
son could not have been more loved and had he felt he could live his life
this way he would have been loved just the same, but this was his right as a
human being. Nobody, but nobody, should judge him or anyone else.”
