Retired Bolton solicitor speaks out on controversial Bill

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater introduced the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in the House of Commons on Wednesday, October 16.

A debate on the bill next month will mark the first time the controversial issue has been voted on in the Commons in almost a decade.

It could mean terminally ill adults in England and Wales could be helped to end their lives “subject to safeguards and protections”.

Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

Retired solicitor Paul Lochery, 77, of Heaton, who handled people's wills and power of attorney has spoken out about the potential consequences of the Bill if it was passed. 

He said: “I know the effect that legalising formerly criminal acts can have on people’s perceptions.

“If you start whittling away at an absolute ban, you end up opening the door to all sorts of negative possibilities.

“In our society, life is meant to be sacred.

“And killing anybody has always been deemed wrong, going back a long time.

Paul Lochery (Image: Public)

“If one section of life isn’t sacred, you open the door to abuse and treating life as less valuable than it is.

“As a private client solicitor, I dealt with people's wills and powers of attorney.

“My clients talked to me like a member of the family.

“I'd known them for many years.

“When some of them became incurably ill and people had to care for them, full or part time, many told me they felt like a burden.

“They could even feel they are overloading the NHS.

“I talked to a lot of people in nursing homes who felt this way.

“People with a terminal illness are in a vulnerable state.

“Sometimes they can be encouraged to feel like they shouldn’t be here so that their families can get on with their lives.

“This can come from their children or people in the care sector, and it is a dangerous slope to be on.

“If they’re told, ‘you are a burden, but we can end all that’, I’d worry about how they’d respond.  

“An ill person in this situation can’t be treated as being in a fully rational state to make decisions or ‘compos mentis’.

“If they gave consent, it wouldn’t be entirely free and informed, but forced upon them by their own feelings of being a burden.

“The closer one gets to death, the greater the pressure that can be felt.

“At some point one can’t say that any decision made is made with free will.

“I know that incurable illness is a terrible thing to have and it plays hell with your mind.

“I can fully understand people saying that they wish it would end.

“But that does not give the government the right to empower other people to help them do it.

“There are plenty of people who are in pain and want it to stop, but the answer is not to kill them.

“Assisted dying is killing.

“People are afraid to use that expression because maybe it makes them feel that what they're doing is wrong. And it is.”

A spokesperson for Bolton Hospice said: “We recognise that assisted dying is a complex and emotive issue and we respect everyone’s right to their own opinion about it.

“We make no judgement about those who support or request assisted dying, however the ethos of hospice and palliative care, as defined by the World Health Organisation, is that it ‘intends neither to hasten nor postpone death’.

“Assisted dying is not part of palliative care practice and is not consistent with the ethos of Bolton Hospice, and we do not advocate it.

“Sometimes requests to hasten death are expressions of fear and distress that may reflect a need for assurance that pain and suffering will be relieved and that end of life decisions made by patients will be respected.”

A debate and first vote on the Bill are expected to take place on November 29.

If it passes the first stage in the Commons, it will go to committee stage where MPs can table amendments.

It would then face further scrutiny and votes in both the Commons and the House of Lords, meaning any change in the law would not be agreed until next year at the earliest.

Chief executive of Dignity in Dying, Sarah Wootton, said: “This is a historic opportunity for MPs to listen to the public mood and bring about real change for dying people and their families.

“The ban on assisted dying is forcing terminally ill people to suffer despite the best care, spend their life savings travelling to Switzerland, or take matters into their own hands at home, with relatives often left traumatised.”