The veteran broadcaster Ray Gosling says he will not co-operate with the police investigating his on-air confession to having smothered his lover dying of Aids.
The 70-year-old presenter made the admission on the BBC East Midlands weekly programme Inside Out, broadcast at 7.30pm last night.
Nottinghamshire Police said this morning that it had launched an investigation, after learning of Mr Gosling's admission for the first time as the show was aired.
Anti-euthanasia groups criticised the BBC for failing to report the confession to the police, but the corporation denied that it had had any legal obligation to do so. Assisted suicide is a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in jail"I'm not going to tell (the police) anything," Mr Gosling told interviewers today, when asked whether he had considered that he might go to jail over his admission.
"There are different kinds of law, you know. There's a law that's written in law books and there's a law in your heart... Different laws carry different weights at different times.
"(Going to jail) is what has to happen maybe. I will have to see what happens."
In the Inside Out programme Mr Gosling was shown weeping as he walked through a graveyard. He does not name his lover, who it is understood was not his long-term partner Bryn.
“I killed someone once... He was a young chap, he’d been my lover and he got Aids," he told the viewers, in a feature on end-of-life decisions.
“In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said, ’There’s nothing we can do’, and he was in terrible, terrible pain.
“I said to the doctor, ’Leave me just for a bit’ and he went away. I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead.
“The doctor came back and I said, ’He’s gone’. Nothing more was ever said.”
In an interview today, Mr Gosling said that the doctor on duty that afternoon had effectively invited him to do something, by deliberately leaving him alone with the dying man.
"Yes, of course the doctor knew (what I had done)," he said.
"There was this moment and the doctor said to me something like: 'I will pop out and have a fag now' or 'go to the canteen' or 'go to another ward – and will you still be here when I get back, Ray?' And I said, 'Ye-es'.
"It was an invitation. Why do doctors leave extra morphine for people who are in extreme pain? 'It's in the drawer, just in case you need it' ... Doctors are doing this every day.The Director of Public Prosecutions is about to announce new guidelines for prosecutors on applying the law on assisted dying, after a string of high profile cases led to calls for clarification and reform.
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said that the case showed that the law was out of step with what society needed and wanted.
“Crucially, Ray Gosling’s loved one was terminally ill and clearly asked for help to die when he was suffering unbearably at the end of his life," said Ms Wootton.
“This illustrates a need for formal assisted dying legislation to help those who want choice at the end of life, as well as protect people who may be vulnerable to coercion.”
But Dr Peter Saunders, of Care Not Killing, said that the story that Mr Gosling had described was not one of helping someone to die but of murder.
"On the basis of the testimony given, legally speaking, this is not a case of assisted suicide – helping someone to kill himself – but of murder –actively ending the life of another person," said Dr Saunders.
He added that it was a myth that patients needed to die in terrible pain, and it would be a tragedy if Mr Gosling's story fuelled that myth.
"The clinical details which have been revealed are very sketchy and it is not at all clear why this man was in pain or why his pain was not being more adequately controlled," he said.
"The case, if anything, should fuel calls to make the very best palliative care, already available to many, much more widely accessible."
Care Not Killing is now considering lodging a complaint with the BBC.
Dr Saunders said that the BBC's behaviour had been "bizarre and highly irresponsible", failing to refer the confession to the police, not airing the footage for two months, and then choosing to broadcast it just as the DPP was about to release his new guidelines.
"This will fuel concerns that the BBC is not covering this issue in an even-handed manner," Dr Saunders said. "It may even be trying to put pressure on both the DPP and Parliament by giving hugely disproportionate coverage to emotive cases in which the facts are selectively presented to an uninformed audience."
The Crown Prosecution Service said today that there is no legal obligation to report a crime.
The nearest offence is Obstructing a Police Officer (Police Act 1996) which applies only if one does something to prevent an officer carrying out his duty, so is not applicable in this case.
A CPS spokeswoman said: "Generally the advice is if you think that an offence might have been committed to contact the police as soon as possible." The CPS said suspects are not required to cooperate with the police, and many interviews are "no comment".
Source:The Times
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