Widow who went to Dignitas with husband says she is 'treated like a terrorist'

A grief-stricken widow who went to Dignitas with her terminally ill husband claims she is being “treated like a terrorist.” Louise Shackleton, 58, has been waiting eight months to find out if she is to be charged over her husband’s assisted suicide in Switzerland.

Themum from North Yorkshiretold The Mirror how she was left “horrified” to be told by her local police, her case is now in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service’s ‘Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division’. The unit deals with some of England's “most high profile and demanding cases”.

“I was mortified that an act of love could be treated in this way. Any other person would have been terrified by that,” Louise said. "This journey has sent me to some dark places, dark places that I never knew I could go to."

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About her late husband Anthony, who was wheelchair-bound, she said: “I pushed my husband onto the plane. I didn't assist him. I’ve done nothing wrong. Yet, I am still going through hell waiting to find out if I will end up in crown court. This is not special to me, this is how people who take someone to Switzerland are investigated and it’s wrong.

"During our campaign for the Assisted Dying Bill, I’ve spoken to many people who have taken their loved ones to Dignitas and some of them haven’t been investigated by the police whatsoever. That makes me feel angry. There was one person investigated in the south whose case was opened and closed in three weeks. Here I am eight months later.”

Louise is being investigated by police after going with her husband Anthony, 59, to Dignitas in Switzerland last December. Her husband, who was suffering from motor neurone disease, had decided to take his own life at Dignitas and Louise explained how she'd reluctantly agreed to travel with him. She described how she could not bear to watch him take the fatal drug but held him in her arms as he passed., which she described as "beautiful".

Sine his death the grieving widow has been supporting the Assisted Dying Bill, explaining: “Ending your own life in the UK is not illegal, so can someone explain to me why it is illegal to be with someone who is doing something that is not illegal? The police are investigating their allegation of a crime with no complainant and no supporting evidence that a coercion may have occurred.

“At no point has it been investigated that I was a victim of my husband’s act, never has it been considered by the police that I was coerced myself to take my husband to Switzerland.”

Louise has told The Mirror, she had not wanted him to take his own life but he had made up his mind because he wanted to avoid “a grotesque and drawn out death from MND”. The disease progressively weakens muscles, including those necessary for breathing, which is a common cause of death.

The House of Commons has already voted in favour of the Assisted Dying Bill and now it is heading to the Lords on September 12. The Bill aims to allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales - with less than six months to live - to legally end their lives.

Louise has told how she does not want others to have to make the same “horrifying” phone calls to their children as she did. She had to tell her three sons and their 90 year old grandparents, Anthony had died in Dignitas. Her husband had been so happy about the news he had a date for his suicide at Dignitas, he wrote ‘death-day’ on his calendar for December 5 2024. A date, Louise said, “she dreaded”.

“The pressure that this has put me under, mentally and financially, is beyond comprehension. I watched my husband as he was handed a lethal dose of barbiturate, that was traumatising enough as I couldn’t stop him. Every bone in my body was screaming to stop him doing it, I looked away as he drank it. I laid with his dying body and heard his final breath.

“And yet I’m being treated like a criminal despite my grief ,watching my family grieve and trying to mend their pain and suffering. The trauma that this ongoing investigation has caused our family is unbelievable. It’s been eight months of anxiety, eight months with no support and eight months of anticipating a possible jury trial.

“I just want to be able to grieve, like any other human being. The law as it stands has driven people, who want an assisted death, to go underground, where there are no safe guards, there is no assessment, there is no support from anybody. It leaves families in an emotionally precarious position. “

Louise says eight months ago, two CID officers questioned her under caution, for suspicion of assisting a death and coercion. She had been asked to voluntarily go to the station in North Yorkshire. On March 13, she said she’d received an email from the investigating officer, telling her ‘no progress had been made on the investigation due to other cases which have taken priority.’

After hearing nothing in the following weeks, the mum then visited a police station to ask for a senior officer to contact her with an update. Then on June 23, she was told the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism (SCCTD) Division were dealing with her case. She was informed the ‘early investigation advice file’ had been logged with them.

There are three operational units within SCCTD: the UK's main body for prosecuting terrorism cases. These are listed as ‘Special Crime, Counter Terrorism, appeals and reviews’. Assisted Dying appears to come under ‘special’ crimes alongside corporate manslaughter, gross negligence, medical manslaughter and election offences.

About the debate in the House of Lords on the Assisted Dying Bill, Louise fears: “The Lords are unelected law makers, so this means that society has no voice. The peers could theoretically vote the bill down at any time, although the democratic legitimacy of this action would cause a huge concern for 75 per cent of people in England and Wales who support it.”