Rantzen’s daughter ‘considers breaking law’ to fulfil mother’s assisted dying wish

Dame Esther Rantzen’s daughter has said she is considering breaking the law to aid her mother’s wish of assisted dying.

The 83-year-old, who fronted the BBC show That’s Life!, is one of the leading advocates for assisted suicide in the UK after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in January last year.

Dame Esther revealed in December that she had signed up for Dignitas, the assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland.

Rebecca Wilcox, daughter of the former television presenter, has since suggested that she would break the law to travel to the clinic with her mother to prevent her attending alone.

The punishment for assisting another person’s suicide is a maximum prison sentence of 14 years in England and Wales.

In a piece for Saga magazine, Ms Wilcox wrote: “If she goes – at the moment it would be her only option for an assisted death – she will have to go alone.

“It is against the law to accompany her. I would face ­prosecution for manslaughter and could receive up to 14 years in prison.

“Even if it doesn’t go to trial, many people face a two-year investigation. I have a young family with two children, a busy home and a complex job. I shouldn’t have to risk going to prison just to keep mum company, but I’m not sure I could let her go alone.”

She added: “It’s an impossible decision to have to make: either risk possible prosecution at the worst time of my life, when I have just lost my adored mum, or do the unthinkable and let her die alone in a foreign country with no one she knows or loves to hold her hand.”

The 44-year-old, who is also a television presenter, said the thought of her mother dying was “abominable” but conceded she was in poor health and suffering from an incurable illness.

Ms Wilcox said she was proud of her mother’s campaigning, adding: “I don’t understand the lack of action by our Government, which seems unable to commit to the subject. It’s inhumane.

“The opportunity to have an assisted, comfortable death in countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland shows a level of compassion in the lawmakers that seems sadly absent from England today.”

Dame Esther is an outspoken advocate for the right of an individual to choose how they die. In an article for The Telegraph last year, she wrote that her dog had been granted a painless death after a diagnosis of inoperable cancer while she had been denied the same.

‘The UK has a broken palliative care system’

In 2009, Sir Keir Starmer, then Director of Public Prosecutions, issued guidelines on aiding someone with assisted suicide.

The guidelines state that an individual acting out of compassion to aid a terminally ill patient with a “clear, settled and informed wish to die” was unlikely to go to court.

However, those persuading or pressuring someone to end their life, or in some way benefiting from their death, could face prosecution.

Assisted dying was also debated in the House of Commons last month after Dame Esther’s campaign.

Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of the campaign group Care Not Killing, said at the time: “We should be talking about how to fix the UK’s broken palliative care system so everyone can have a dignified death.”

The Crown Prosecution Service said that between April 2009 and March 2024, it received 187 referrals for cases of assisted suicide, with four cases of encouraging or assisting suicide being prosecuted.