No charge against man who watched his sister kill herself

A BRITISH man who comforted his terminally-ill sister during her harrowing 26-hour suicide will not be charged with a crime, it was revealed yesterday.

Graham Lawson, from west Kent, faced the possibility of 14 years’ imprisonment because he watched his 48-year-old sister, Sue, die.

She repeatedly tried to suffocate herself with a plastic bag, “howling” with despair as she reached the point of being unable to resist taking a breath, said Graham.

Former bank manager Sue made seven unsuccessful attempts as Graham comforted her.

She finally succeeded on the eighth attempt.

Within an hour Graham was under arrest, stripped and then locked in a police cell for 24 hours.

In the first case of its kind in Britain, the police and prosecutors’ decision on whether to take action hinged on Graham’s failure to dial 999 as Sue took her life at her home in Kent.

Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald eventually informed Graham’s solicitors in April last year, five months after Sue’s suicide, that no action would be taken.

Graham decided to go public less than a week after Brian Blackburn escaped a prison sentence for helping his cancer-stricken wife, Margaret, commit suicide in a final “act of love”.

Agricultural worker Graham, 35, said: “Sue told me she wanted to die and she asked if I would be there for her. I made a promise that I would, and I just stuck by it. When she took her life I was with her.”

Sue, who had suffered from multiple sclerosis for 14 years and was unable to care for herself, told Graham she was finally ready to die.

He said he did not realise he could face charges of aiding and abetting suicide by carrying his sister upstairs to lie on her bed and not calling an ambulance. “I was arrested, stripped of my clothes, photographed and made to feel like some kind of murderer,” he said.

News that Sue had died was broken to their elderly parents by the police - Graham was unable to do so because he was in custody.

“I was being investigated and my life was in limbo for months. We could have no funeral until we knew I wasn’t going to be prosecuted - the body couldn’t be released.”

Describing Sue’s terrible experience as she tried to take her own life, Graham said: “I had been staying with her for about a month, when she was really, really ill.

“She was sitting in her wheelchair and said ‘Right, I’ve had enough. I want to do it’. I carried her upstairs to her bed.

“She took an overdose and she suffocated herself with a bag - she wanted to make sure that she died.

“It took 26 hours for her to die, and eight attempts.

“I just can’t imagine what she was going through, having to do it again and again, but I don’t think I should have stopped her, because of her determination and her bravery.

“This seems wrong to say, but it was quite an amazing thing to see.”