In 2005 Donald Mawditt, aged 72, called 999. When help arrived it was too late. Mawditt told paramedics that he had given Maureen his ‘soul mate’ and wife of 50 years, diazepam to tranquilise her,...

In 2005 Donald Mawditt, aged 72, called 999. When help arrived it was too late. Mawditt told paramedics that he had given Maureen his ‘soul mate’ and wife of 50 years, diazepam to tranquilise her, then strangled her with a carrier bag and ‘held it there for 5 minutes’ after she had stopped breathing. Maureen, a grandmother of four, was 70. She was terminally ill with a failing heart and liver. She was doubly incontinent, incoherent, had spasms and lapsed in and out of consciousness. She had begged her husband to strangle her, a plea that had been heard by their doctor. As Mawditt was taken from his house by police, he kissed his wife’s body and said ‘goodbye, my darling’. Mawditt was charged with murder, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Judge Crowther sentenced Mawditt to a 3 year conditional discharge, saying: ‘You have caused the death of your wife at a time when her life had become intolerable. It is sometimes described as mercy killing. Our law does not recognise that as such and our social ethos is such that the taking of a life can never be condoned. Even in such cases punishment is required to mark the gravity of the matter and to enable the perpetrator to pay a proper penalty for the act. You are plainly no risk to society, so I come to the conclusion that the proper disposal is one that at first sight is utterly exceptional but to which I am driven by logic: you will never be punished for this act save insofar as your suffering has been punishment in itself.’ Mr Mawditt’s daughter Karen said, ‘If dad had chosen to lie to the police he would never had been charged with the killing. I admire my dad for what he did.’ In such cases there is usually a public outcry. People make it clear in no uncertain terms that a person in this situation is not to be treated as a murderer. Usually they get their way. In such situations, as with Mr Mawditt, the court often hands down a suspended sentence, lets someone off on the grounds of temporary insanity or otherwise absolves them of guilt. It would seem that even where the law clearly and unambiguously states that all intentional killing is prohibited, there is room for the law to recognise a distinction between murder and euthanasia in the sentences handed down. Another question we might ask therefore in weighing the utility of regulating versus banning euthanasia, is whether the courts will be able to have the same discretion in passing sentence where euthanasia is regulated by law as they do where euthanasia is illegal.