Assisted suicide is still a crime which will be prosecuted in Britain, says the Director of Public Prosecutions. Mr Keir Starmer published new guidelines this week at the request of the Law Lords and after a public consultation.

"Nothing in this policy could be taken to amount to an assurance that a person will not be prosecuted if he assists the suicide or attempted suicide of another person," the DPP said.

What the police will assess most carefully is whether a suspect was wholly motivated by compassion. This will be given more weight than whether the victim was terminally ill or in pain. Being related to the victim will not be a condition for mitigation because relatives could be manipulative.

Other conditions for mitigation include whether the victim had made a clear, voluntary decision to commit suicide and whether the suspect had reported the suicide to the police and fully assisted inquiries.

Mr Starmer insisted that it was Parliament’s job to change the legislation, not his. "Only parliament can set out what processes or procedures might be appropriate in the context of encouraging or assisting suicide that may lead to an automatic decision not to prosecute," he said. Mercy killing remains a crime.

Reaction to the new guidelines was mixed.  Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said: "Many disabled people are frightened by the consequences of these new guidelines and with good reason. There is a real danger these changes will result in disabled people being pressured to end their lives."

But Debbie Purdy, the woman with multiple sclerosis who forced a decision on the matter by taking her plea for clarity to the House of Lords, was satisfied. She can now travel to Dignitas in Zurich secure in the knowledge that her husband will probably not be prosecuted. "The important thing about the guidelines is they've been able to really clarify the difference between malicious encouragement and compassionate support for somebody's decision," she said.

The day before the guidelines were published, Prime Minister Gordon Brown , published an article in the London Telegraph arguing forcefully against the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

“The law – together with the values and standards of our caring professions – supports good care, including palliative care for the most difficult of conditions; and also protects the most vulnerable in our society. For let us be clear: death as an option and an entitlement, via whatever bureaucratic processes a change in the law might devise, would fundamentally change the way we think about mortality. The risk of pressures – however subtle – on the frail and the vulnerable, who may feel their existences burdensome to others, cannot ever be entirely excluded. And the inevitable erosion of trust in the caring professions – if they were in a position to end life – would be to lose something very precious.”

~ London Telegraph, Feb 24; Guardian, Feb 25