Journalist may face murder charge after mercy killing
Maureen Messent, aged 67, born in Clogheen near Clonmel, was arrested by police in Britain last Thursday after admitting to killing her great-aunt by administering a morphine overdose.
Ms Messent made the confession in a column she wrote for the Birmingham Evening Mail, published on February 3. She has worked at the Mail for the past 40 years.
In an article entitled "Why I was right to kill my great-aunt", Ms Messent said Eileen O'Sullivan was dying of lung cancer at the time she decided on the mercy killing in 1976.
She said the doctor, a family friend, left the bottle of morphine, saying "Give her this as she needs it." That night, Ms Messent gave her the lethal dose of morphine. "In the middle of a crisis I become quite calm, even cold," she wrote. "I knew what had to be done. I said goodbye and gave her the whole bottle."
Asking "Does that make me a killer?" Ms Messent claimed she acted out of love "remembering the times Eileen had cherished animals put down because they were in pain."
Ms Messent's column was written in the context of a debate on the laws governing euthanasia, when the British Department of Constitutional Affairs is debating the possibility of allowing the sick to give permission to relatives to tell doctors they can end their lives.
Ms Messent said she felt "absolutely no remorse" about her great-aunt.
"What I did, I did and I will go to my God saying: 'yes I did it'."
Yesterday, a spokesperson for Devon and Cornwall police said Ms Messent was arrested and questioned in a West Midlands police station last Thursday following her public confession.
She was released on police bail to return to the same station on June 23 next.
"Officers will now consult with the Crown Prosecution Service and are considering offences, including murder and wasting police time," the spokesperson said.
He said it was "not beyond the realm of possibility" that Ms O'Sullivan's body could be exhumed. Ms O'Sullivan, also from Tipperary, was living in the area at the time of her death and is buried in Devon.
Ms Messent's column generated massive sales when it appeared in the Mail on February 3. Editor Steve Dyson said 17,000 extra copies were printed when the column appeared.
Speaking to Britain's Press Gazette, Ms Messent said: "I genuinely thought that this was a debate that needed airing from somebody that had actually done it.
"A lot of people were offering long-winded sermons about the sanctity of life or there were people who thought it was quite legitimate to do it, but since I've been through it I thought I'd have a go."
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