British police are investigating how a young rugby player died with the help of Dignitas, the Swiss assisted suicide group in September. Daniel James, who became a quadriplegic last year, was only 23. His parents escorted him to Zurich after yield to his insistent pleas for death. He may have been the 100th Briton to die in facilities organised by Dignitas.

The case has caused consternation in the UK, probably because of Daniel’s youth and tragic story. A potential professional who had represented England under-16s, he dislocated his spine in a scrum.

Julie James, Daniel’s mother, was indignant that police had responded to an anonymous tip-off. In a website posting, she wrote: “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.”

Suicide in England is not illegal, but assisting a suicide is.

Not everyone supported the suicide victim. “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. “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.”

Baroness Mary Warnock, who is probably the most eminent bioethicist in the UK, and a strong supporter of assisted suicide and euthanasia, sees the case as an opportunity to test the law. Writing in The Guardian, she observes that if the police decline to prosecute, even though the case against Mr and Mrs James is “crystal clear”, then the law will fall into disrepute. What is at stake, says Warnock is a principle: “we have a moral obligation to take other people's seriously reached decisions with regard to their own lives equally seriously, not putting our judgment of the value of their life above theirs. Mr and Mrs James have sadly and dramatically carried out this moral obligation.”

Feelings about the case are running high. Simon Jenkins, once editor of the London Times, and now a columnist at The Guardian, commented that denial of the right to die is sheer religious primitivism: “Only the most warped collectivist could argue that individuals must be kept alive against their will.” ~ London Times, Oct 19