BBC presenter admits mercy killing of lover who had Aids

A BBC television presenter has admitted that he carried out the mercy killing of a lover who had Aids.

By Martin Beckford

BBC presenter Ray Gosling

Ray Gosling, a veteran documentary-maker, said he had smothered the man with a pillow as he lay in his hospital bed, after doctors said they couldn’t help relieve his suffering.
He claimed he had previously made a pact with the man, whom he did not name, that he would help him die if his pain became unbearable.

 

Mr Gosling insisted that he had no regrets about his “startling confession”.

He made the admission during a film in which he looked ahead to his own death and funeral for BBC East Midlands’ Inside Out show, broadcast on Monday evening.
It is likely to lead to fresh claims that the BBC is “biased” in support of relaxing the law on assisted suicide, ahead of the publication of new official guidelines.
Mr Gosling said: “I killed someone, once. He was a young chap, he’d been my lover and he got Aids.
“In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said there’s nothing we can do. He was in terrible, terrible pain.
“I said to the doctor ‘leave me just for a bit’, and he went away, and I picked up the pillow and smothered him till he was dead.
“Doctor came back and I said ‘he’s gone’. Nothing more was ever said.”
Questioned by a co-presenter about why he had now made his confession, apparently years later, Mr Gosling said he had met a lot of people in similar situations to his, whose loved ones were in “terrible pain” but were “taking a long time to die”.
Asked if he had any regrets, he replied: “None whatsoever. I did the right thing.
“We’d got a pact. We’d got an agreement, if it got worse, the pain, and nobody could do anything, I said I’d do it.”
Mr Gosling said only some of the dead man’s family knew what had happened.
His claims come just weeks before a landmark set of guidelines will be published by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, which will be seen by many as legalising assisted suicide by the back door.
Aiding or abetting another’s death remains illegal in England and Wales, and is punishable by up to 14 years in jail under the 1961 Suicide Act.
However over the past decade more than 100 Britons have taken their loved ones to end their lives at Dignitas, the “suicide clinic” in Switzerland where the law is less strict, yet escaped prosecution back home.
Attempts have been made in the House of Lords to decriminalise assisted suicide without success. But last year Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, won an important battle when she took the DPP to the High Court over the lack of clarity in the current law.
She argued that she should be told whether her husband would face prosecution if he one day helped her die at Dignitas, and in July the Law Lords agreed with her appeal.
They forced the DPP to set out exactly under what circumstances charges would be brought for assisting suicide, despite Mr Starmer’s claim that the law should be decided by Parliament.
His draft guidelines, published in September, set out a checklist of factors that would make prosecution less likely, such as the facts that the victim was terminally ill, had previously tried to kill themselves or that their helper was a loved one who did not stand to gain financially from their death.
The final guidelines are due by March and are not expected to differ greatly from the earlier draft, despite opposition from the medical profession, legal experts and religious leaders. Last week the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, warned that creating a right to die would be a “moral mistake”.
Critics claim the effective decriminalisation of assisted suicide will put vulnerable people, such as the elderly or disabled, under pressure to end the burden they place on carers by killing themselves. There are also fears that the guidelines could be used by the unscrupulous as a charter to “bump off granny” and claim her inheritance.
Public opinion appears to support relaxation of the law, with a recent YouGov poll showing three-quarters of those questioned against prosecution.
But it has been claimed that the mood has been affected by a series of tragic cases reaching the courts. Kay Gilderdale was acquitted of attempted murder but admitted assisting suicide after she helped end the life of her daughter, Lynn, who had ME for 17 years. Frances Inglis was jailed for murder after giving her brain-damaged son, Thomas, a fatal overdose.
The BBC has itself been accused of providing crucial support to the pro-assisted suicide lobby in recent months.
In November, an elderly couple were found dead at their home just days after they wrote to the corporation criticising the existing law.
Earlier this month Sir Terry Pratchett, the best-selling author who has Alzheimer’s, delivered a well-publicised lecture shown on BBC One in which he called for the establishment of a “tribunal” to give seriously ill people permission to get help to die.
On the same night the channel showed a Panorama programme about the Gilderdale case, called I Helped My Daughter Die.
An Early Day Motion has been signed by 22 MPs criticising the “persistent bias” of the BBC in its coverage of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and accusing it of having “ignored the rights of the disabled”.