83 year old Scottish physician in custody over “assisted suicide”

A RETIRED Scottish GP who advised an academic on how to kill herself was last night released on bail by police after six hours of interrogation.  Dr Libby Wilson was the first person to be arrested since the publication of new guidelines on assisted suicide and she accused the authorities of an “appalling waste of public money and police time and effort”.

The retired doctor, 83, is a right -to-die campaigner who runs the organisation Friends at the End, which advises terminally ill people how to take their own lives, as well as helping to arrange trips to Dignitas, the Swiss clinic.  She was asked to attend Woking police station in Surrey yesterday morning and was arrested after disclosing that she gave “final tips” to Cari Loder, a 48-year-old multiple sclerosis sufferer who killed herself at her home in Surrey in June by inhaling a lethal dose of a gas she had ordered over the internet.  Last night, Dr Wilson, from Glasgow, said she had had nothing to do with the death of Ms Loder. She said she had only had two conversations with Ms Loder prior to her death.  She said: “The police were very polite and pleasant, but I just think it is an appalling waste of public money and police time and effort to investigate the death of a woman who wanted to die and had very good reason to die.  “I had nothing to do with the means of how she did it. I spoke to the lady and she phoned me twice, but that was the extent of my involvement.”

Source/more:  The Scotsman, http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/GP-83–held-.5685411.jp