A former BBC documentary producer threw petrol on the smouldering euthanasia debate in the UK this week with a public confession that he had committed a mercy killing 20 years ago. Seventy-year-old Ray Gosling, who was well known in the 60s and 70s as a reporter and gay activist, told a BBC TV show that he had smothered a lover dying of AIDS with a pillow. The doctor looking after the man was apparently aware but did nothing.

“In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said ‘There’s nothing we can do’, and he was in terrible, terrible pain. I said to the doctor ‘Leave me just for a bit’ and he went away. I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead. The doctor came back and I said ‘He’s gone’. Nothing more was ever said.”

Shortly after the program was broadcast, police called Mr Gosling in for questioning, but he refused to name the man or to give any details of the incident. He told the media that he had no regrets. “If there’s a heaven and he’s looking down, he’d be proud of me,” he told the BBC.

Mr Gosling’s confession, filmed artfully in a chilly graveyard, was made two months ago, but the BBC did not inform police. This has led to accusations that the UK’s public broadcaster is subtly supporting the cause of assisted suicide.

“It is somewhat bizarre and highly irresponsible that the BBC… made the decision to make it international news just before the [Director of Public Prosecutions] releases his assisted suicide prosecution guidelines,” said the lobby group Care Not Killing. ~ Independent, Feb 17; New York Times, Feb 17