Mother ends life at Swiss clinic four years after son’s death

A grieving mother has ended her life at a clinic in Switzerland four years after the death of her only child.Wendy Duffy, 56, a physically healthy woman, died at the Pegasos clinic in Basel after struggling to cope with the death of her 23-year-old son, Marcus.The former care worker, from the West Midlands, had previously attempted to take her own life.The case comes as assisted dying will not become law in England and Wales after proposed legislation, branded “hopelessly flawed” by opponents, ran out of time.Ruedi Habegger, the founder of Pegasos, described Duffy’s death as a “sane suicide”

MPs vow to bring back assisted dying bill after ‘undemocratic’ Lords block

MPs and peers who led the assisted dying bill have promised to bring it back to parliament after it ran out of time in the House of Lords.Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who tabled the private member’s bill, said the plan would be to table an identical bill in the next parliamentary session, which would prevent peers blocking it again, as the Lords cannot stop the same bill twice.The terminally ill adults (end of life) bill, which completed its passage through the Commons in June last year, was blocked in the Lords after more than 1,200 amendments were tabled. The bill’s supporters said it was a denial of democracy. More than 800 of the amendments originated from seven peers

‘Not democratic’: opponents and backers of assisted dying bill remain divided

Amid the failure of an attempt to bring in new laws allowing assisted dying for terminally ill people with less than six months to live, campaigners on both sides of the debate vented their anger and frustration with the opposing side.Its supporters, including terminally ill people, blamed the failure of the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill, which passed in the House of Commons, on sabotage by a handful of unelected peers.But opponents, who include MPs, peers and disability activists, argued the proposed legislation failed because it was poorly drafted and did not address practical concerns about how assisted dying would work in practice.Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said a handful of peers, whom she described as “implacable opponents of assisted dying”, had dominated debates in the Lords and rained down amendments in order to talk out the bill. “It’s absolutely shameless what a tiny group, less than 1% of the unelected, the upper house, has done,” she added

Baby died after NHS trust failed to warn mother of ‘unsafe’ home birth, coroner finds

A mother who lost her baby a week after an “unsafe” home birth that went against medical advice was failed by the NHS, an inquest has found.Poppy Hope Lomas was seven days old when she died at University College hospital in London on 26 October 2022 after complications during a home birth that, according to her mother, was encouraged by midwives at Barnet hospital.An inquest into Poppy’s death at Barnet coroner’s court concluded that she probably died from a lack of oxygen reaching her brain in the 30 minutes before she was born.The senior coroner Andrew Walker said the Royal Free London NHS foundation trust had agreed to support Poppy’s mother, Gemma Lomas, with an “unsafe home delivery that was against medical advice” and had failed to address “an accumulation of risk factors”.After the inquest concluded on Thursday, Lomas said outside the court: “Nothing will ever bring her back, but hearing the truth today acknowledged means everything to us

Breaking the cycle of drugs, debt and violence in prisons | Letters

Your leader on drugs in prisons (16 April) is right about the scale of the crisis, but wrong to suggest the chief inspector has only recently found his voice. Charlie Taylor has been consistent throughout: the prison system is failing by almost every meaningful measure.This is not just about money or overcrowding. It is about leadership, culture and accountability. A system under pressure can still be well led; too often ours is not

The Preston model is not likely to unravel just yet | Letters

“Were Reform to capture the council … the Preston model might quickly unravel,” writes Andy Beckett (The UK’s radical ‘Preston model’ faces an uncertain future with local elections looming, 20 April). He is worrying unnecessarily. Reform UK at present has just one seat on Preston city council. Councillors are elected by thirds, meaning 16 of the 48 seats – including the one held by Reform – are up for grabs in May. So in theory Reform could win 16 seats, which would hardly constitute capturing the council