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,… click here to read whole article and make comments