Accompanying deceased to Swiss clinic does not by itself amount to assisting suicide, EWHC rules

The England and Wales High Court (EWHC) judgment confirms that the mere act of accompanying a person to a place where they intend to end their own life does not amount to assisting a suicide (Morris v Morris, 2024 EWHC 2554 Ch).

Myra Morris (the deceased) died on 5 December 2023 aged 73 at the Pegasos clinic in Liestal. For two years, she had been suffering from the incurable degenerative neurological disorder Multiple System Atrophy. The coroner at her inquest noted that her condition had deteriorated to the point where she had little enjoyment from life, was in constant pain and found it very difficult to cope.

It was accepted by all parties that the deceased ended her own life by self-administration of an overdose of pentobarbital. To do so, she had obtained assistance from Pegasos clinic staff and from her husband, Philip Morris (the claimant), who had accompanied her along with their two adult children. The claimant had also assisted his wife in making the necessary administrative arrangements for her to travel to the clinic. All this was enough to engage the assisted suicide provisions of s.2(1) of the Suicide Act 1961 (the 1961 Act), so that in principle the forfeiture rule as codified in the Forfeiture Act 1982 would prevent the claimant from inheriting the assets the deceased left him.

The deceased had made a will in December 2021. It left her residuary estate to be held on trust for the claimant absolutely and, subject to that, for their two adult children in equal shares absolutely.

Section 2(2) of the Forfeiture Act allows applications for relief modifying the effect of the forfeiture rule so as to allow the claimant to inherit from the deceased. Philip Morris brought such an application.

The EWHC was given a detailed account of the claimant’s conduct in the affair, including a witness statement made by the deceased shortly before she died. This was supported by a witness statement made at the same time by her solicitor, who assessed the deceased as having the mental capacity to make an informed and voluntary decision to end her own life according to the principles contained in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The solicitor said that she was satisfied that the deceased was able to understand the decisions she was making and was under no undue influence, pressure or encouragement when she did so.

The court also considered the Policy for Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide, issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions in February 2010 and updated in October 2014. This listed the public interest factors which tend in favour of and against prosecution. The judge examined each of the 16 factors which tend in favour of prosecution, and concluded that none of them were present in the current case.

Regarding the claimant’s conduct, the EWHC concluded that the deceased had made a voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision to die by suicide before the claimant started to take any steps capable of amounting to assistance. Further, it found that the deceased had full capacity and maintained that decision throughout the period up to her death and that the claimant was wholly motivated by compassion, had never encouraged to take her own life and indeed had sought to dissuade her from doing so. The court also noted that the claimant had reported the death to the police and offered to assist them in any enquiries. In the event, the police took no further steps.

Citing the statement of principle in the judgment from Dunbar v Plant (1998 Ch 412), the EWHC concluded that there was no evidence of the claimant’s moral culpability for what had happened. Strong grounds therefore existed for relieving him from all effects of the forfeiture rule. Moreover, all beneficiaries of the deceased’s will consented to the relief the claimant sought. The EWHC duly granted that relief, fully excluding the application of the forfeiture rule.

The remaining issue was one that had arisen in a previous hearing in the same case: namely, whether the two children, by travelling with the deceased to the Swiss clinic, had rendered themselves open to forfeiture. The possibility had been originally raised in the case of Ninian v Findlay (2019 EWHC 297 Ch), which suggested that, on the facts of that case, the very act of travelling to Switzerland in the company of the deceased was of itself an act of assistance within the meaning of section 2(1) of the 1961 Act.

The EWHC’s view was that it was not. 'The question for the court is always whether any particular acts, whether or not part of a course of conduct, are “capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide”', it noted. This was an objective question, it said: though accompanying the deceased may sometimes be part of a course of conduct that indicated intent to assist, this would not necessarily be the case. The children's only intention in being there was to provide comfort to the deceased by their presence and nothing they did was capable of encouraging her death by suicide, the court said. Accordingly, their interests in her estate are not forfeit.

Sources

• BAILII