Northern Ireland: Man jailed over "mercy killing" bid on lifelong friend

Description: [of the article from the Belfast Telegraph]

Three extracts from this report:
A man who admitted trying to kill his "lifelong friend" in an apparent mercy killing after he suffered a stroke has been jailed for three years. Belfast Crown Court heard that in June last year 59-year-old Thomas Charles Hawkes donned his best suit, had several drinks and went to the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) where his best friend William Cousins was being treated for a stroke he had suffered three weeks previously…

In police interviews he claimed that just a few weeks before Mr Cousins suffered the stroke, the friends had made a pact that one would kill the other if they became ill with no prospect of a cure. Hawkes told police he "knew what he had to do" and had put on his best suit before going to the RVH "to give Billy a little dignity", and also because he knew he would be leaving with the police. Hawkes, from Rosslea Way in Rathcoole, pleaded guilty to trying to murder his friend, a one-time leading loyalist in the UVF…

Describing the case as unique and unusual, defence lawyer Mark Farrell argued that given the pact between the friends, the case was more akin to assisted suicide. However in jailing Hawkes, Judge Tom Burgess said he was wrong to have taken the law into his own hands in making the "life and death decision". He told Hawkes that while it was said he was acting out of compassion, "such actions were totally wrong and any such compassion totally misplaced".

[There is information in the Notes section below.]
[There are other related stories in the Links: section below.]
[There are stories in the Overflow section below.]

Links:

To read the full article click on one of these links, both of which go to the same destination. A short link is provided for the convenience of readers. Also, readers may search and browse past and future advisories on the web (see bottom.)

Source:

"Man jailed over 'mercy killing' bid on lifelong friend". Belfast Telegraph. Thursday, 6 May 2010. <www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/man-jailed-over-mercy-killing-bid-on-lifelong-friend-14793932.html>. Belfast Telegraph, 124-144 Royal Avenue, Belfast BT1 1EB, Northern Ireland.

Tags:

Tags (or keywords) briefly indicate some major topics of the report.

  • mercy killing

  • Northern Ireland

Notes:

  • Newsletter: Dying With Dignity Victoria: Update [Dying With Dignity Victoria]
    http://www.dwdv.org.au/newsletters/nl_150Autumn10.pdf

    The Autumn edition of DWDV's newsletter, Update, has just been released. In it you will find a wealth of information including:

    Attorney-General Rob Hulls insistence in a television interview during the recent Easter weekend that laws should reflect community standards. Yet he continues to ignore 85% of the community who want the law reformed to allow physician assisted dying.

    Meanwhile DWDV is preparing for the world biennial conference of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies in Melbourne from October 7 to 10. Speakers will include some of the world's leading authorities on physician assisted dying.

    You can download the Autumn edition from http://www.dwdv.org.au/newsletters/nl_150Autumn10.pdf

    Regards,

    Judith Hoy
    DWDV Member Communications

Overflow:

Stories that EuthaNEWSia did not get to:

  • USA: Find Yourself a Good Hospital [Compassion and Choices]
    http://compassionandchoices.org/blog/?p=1005
    Barbara Coombs Lee writes about a recent study, showing that hospitals, not nursing homes, are the place where the decision to insert feeding tubes are made — and that the rate of insertion varies widely between institutions.

    She concludes:
    Advance care planning, the study says, also has an important role in reduction of potentially unnecessary procedures. Although it's not fool-proof (590 patients were given feeding tubes despite written orders to forgo artificial hydration and nutrition!) patients with a living will and durable power of attorney for health care were far less likely to have tubes inserted.

    Once again, our advice proves sound: prepare an advance directive, talk to your doctor, talk to your loved ones. Because you can't be sure whether the policies of a for-profit hospital, or a Catholic one, might impose an unwanted feeding tube, consider adding this Sectarian Health Care Directive addendum. And help Compassion & Choices set enforceability standards for advance directives. We want feeding tube decisions to follow your wishes, not institutional policies of profit or doctrine.

  • USA: Assisted suicide and "free choice" [CNN]
    http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/05/iyengar.assisted.suicide/
    Sheena Iyengar, the S.T. Lee professor of business at Columbia Business School and the author of "The Art of Choosing.", writes about the causes underlying the reluctance of Americans to allow people to have the choice of dying.

  • USA: Medicare Cost-Curve at the End of Life [Medical Futility Blog]
    http://medicalfutility.blogspot.com/2010/05/medicare-cost-curve-at-end-of-life.html
    Professor Thaddeus Pope notes a proposal to reverse the default on end-of-life treatment:

    Particularly memorable was Dr. Fine's challenge that hospitals should do what hospices must now do. Hospices must prove that the patient is terminal to qualify for payment of Medicare hospice benefits. Why not flip that and make the requirement symmetrical, asks Fine. Hospitals should prove that the patient is NOT terminal before undergoing expensive, aggressive, curative-directed measures.

  • Kevorkian vs. Death Panels: There Is a Huge Difference [OpEdNews]
    http://www.opednews.com/articles/Kevorkian-vs-Death-Panels-by-Mary-Shaw-100503-106.html
    Mary Shaw, a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, writes about the need for aid in dying. Her concluding paragraphs:

    While physicians are sworn to do no harm, is it not harmful to force a dying patient to suffer a slow, lingering death against his or her will, perhaps kept alive artificially with respirators and feeding tubes? When a pet becomes ill to the point where it is near death and suffering uncontrollably, a veterinarian will not think twice before recommending that the pet be euthanized, to put the animal out of its misery. So why do we treat our dying pets with more mercy than we treat our dying people?

    I have to agree with Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society (now known as Compassion and Choices) and author of the controversial suicide manual Final Exit, who said: "Surely the right to die in a manner and at a time one's own choosing is the ultimate civil liberty."

    And the key word here is choosing. No death panels, just respect for the rational end-of-life wishes of the suffering. No death panels, just compassion.

    No death panels, just a choice.

  • Terri Schiavo: Family members profit from foundation funds [WSTP-TV]
    http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=130950
    A Florida radio station reports on the disposition of charitable contributions taken in by the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation.

  • Attacks on the Schindler family are unfounded [Euthanasia Prevention Coalition]
    http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/05/attacks-on-schindler-family-are.html
    Alex Schadenberg at the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition reacts to the news report from Florida TV station WSTP-TV, and summarizes the reaction from the anti-euthanasia community.

  • Washington: Facing the Final Chapters of Life [Kitsap Sun]
    http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/apr/30/rob-woutat-facing-the-final-chapters-of-life/
    Rob Woutat writes about problems with some local Washington nursing homes:
    Some of the problems cited: failure to give medications when prescribed; failure to give medication in the prescribed doses; failure to apply emergency treatment; failure to treat pressure sores, sometimes resulting in the potent, contagious staph infection MRSA; failure to provide basic hygiene like shaves and baths; failure to follow or update residents' care plans; and failure to protect specially vulnerable residents from unwanted sexual advances by other residents.

    Whether these problems are attributed to indifference of some staff members, poor training, staff shortages, or administrative laxity, the consequence for the residents is the same, and given the financial pressures on nursing homes, the prospects for better conditions are not very encouraging.

    He concludes:
    [,,.9]    It seems to me that "death with dignity" is an ill-chosen phrase designed to prettify a process that often isn't dignified at all. Dignity is not a province of the dead but of the living. And dying - when it comes slowly, as it does so often - may not be very dignified at all. It can be ugly, messy, smelly and costly, and so long as we're in a nursing home or a hospital, and unless the heart just suddenly and mercifully stops, that's what's ahead of us if we believe we're obligated to continue breathing as long as medically possible.
    As of the fourth of last month, those with terminal illnesses are lucky to have the option of an express exit, thanks to the Washington Death With Dignity Act. The rest of us will have to hope against hope that our local nursing homes will be better than they are now.

  • Newsletter: Dying With Dignity Victoria: Update [Dying With Dignity Victoria]
    http://www.dwdv.org.au/newsletters/nl_150Autumn10.pdf

    The Autumn edition of DWDV's newsletter, Update, has just been released. In it you will find a wealth of information including:

    Attorney-General Rob Hulls insistence in a television interview during the recent Easter weekend that laws should reflect community standards. Yet he continues to ignore 85% of the community who want the law reformed to allow physician assisted dying.

    Meanwhile DWDV is preparing for the world biennial conference of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies in Melbourne from October 7 to 10. Speakers will include some of the world's leading authorities on physician assisted dying.

    You can download the Autumn edition from http://www.dwdv.org.au/newsletters/nl_150Autumn10.pdf

    Regards,

    Judith Hoy
    DWDV Member Communications

ID:

The EuthaNEWSia ID for this advisory is: enid201005066792.
Mailed: Thursday, May 6, 2010 14:24:16 -0600
at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Etcetera:

EuthaNEWSia is a free Canadian news advisory service covering end-of-life issues such as right to die, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. EuthaNEWSia is produced by the Right to Die Society of Canada which works toward a good death for all, including open, regulated and equitable access to euthanasia and assisted suicide. The editor is Michael Dawson <editor@euthanewsia.ca>. 

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