Smash hit

"I always stop and think that if every family affected by spinal injury in the past 20 years had raised money for research, we might be five years more advanced and it may have made a difference to Dan.”

Her son was a former pupil of Worcester’s Royal Grammar School and, when he sustained his injury, he was studying construction engineering management at Loughborough University. He had played for Worcester RFC mini-junior and rose through the ranks to play for Worcester Wanderers Colts. He also represented England Under-16s, England Universities and England Students.

After his death was announced, a spokesman for Worcester Warriors said: “Danny and his family are a large part of the family ethos at Worcester Warriors and Worcester Rugby Football Club and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.

“Danny’s injuries were caused on a rugby field and it is something that every player that runs out on to the pitch fears most. However, as a result of Danny James, and also Matt Hampson at Leicester Tigers, the game of rugby has been made more aware of the dangers of spinal injuries.”

More than 100 Britons have travelled to Switzerland to make use of laws that allow assisted suicide, a practice prohibited in Britain. The figure, released by Dignitas, the centre for assisted dying in Zurich, were disclosed as a High Court test challenge begins today to the laws that ban aiding and abetting suicide.

Dignitas was founded in 1998 by Ludwig Minelli, a Swiss lawyer who runs it as a non-profit organisation. It takes advantage of Switzerland's liberal laws on assisted suicide, which suggest that a person can be prosecuted only if they are acting out of self-interest.

According to Dignitas, the number of Britons among its assisted suicides reached 100 last month. There is, however, no independent verification of its figures.

In the latest legal battle to be brought through the courts on the assisted suicide issue, multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy was told she must wait to learn whether she has won her legal battle to clarify the law after two judges at the High Court reserved their judgment on her case.

Her lawyers are seeking a High Court declaration that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, is obliged under human rights laws to spell out in clearer terms the circumstances and the factors which might lead to the prosecution of members of her family if she undertook an assisted suicide.

It is the first big challenge to the law on assisted suicide since that brought by Dianne Pretty, who died aged 43 in May 2002 from motor neuron disease. Her effort to change the law so that her husband could help her to end her life was rejected by the House of Lords in November 2001.

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