UPDATE: |’No regrets, he had a beautiful death’: Wife investigated by police over husband’s assisted death News

Louise Shackleton has spoken out for the first time since her husband Anthony, 59, died in Switzerland

A wife who assisted her husband’s suicide at Dignitas in Switzerland has spoken out, saying she has ‘no regrets’ about the decision.

Louise Shackleton, from North Yorkshire, has broken her silence since her husband died in December, amid parliamentary discussions on whether to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.

Louise, whose spouse Anthony had Motor Neurone Disease, said: “It took four people to get him on the plane and he turned and looked at me and said ‘they can’t stop us now can they love?”

“We talked at length over two years about this and what he said to me on many occasions is ‘look at my options’.

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“Look at what my options are. I can either go there and I can die peacefully, with grace, without pain, without suffering or I could be laid in a bed not being able to move, not even being able to look at something unless you move my head’. What he wanted, nothing more but a good death.”

Describing his final moments, she said: “He had a beautiful death, he fell asleep in my arms and as I laid with him it was surreal, I had to call an Uber. As I walked out of there, there was this panic and fear that I was leaving him.”

Mrs Shackleton reflected on their long relationship, noting they had been together for 25 years and had known each other since they were 18. He had been living with motor neurone disease for six years, reports the Mirror.

“I couldn’t do anything else but help him,” she said. She handed herself over to authorities upon her return from Switzerland, following the assisted death of her husband Anthony five months prior.

“I have committed a crime, which I have admitted to, of assisting him by simply pushing him onto a plane and being with him, which I don’t regret for one moment. He was my husband and I loved him.”

UK law forbids assisting others in suicide, though actual prosecutions remain infrequent. North Yorkshire Police told Sky News via a spokesperson: “The investigation is ongoing. There is nothing further to add at this stage.”

Parliamentary debate on the proposed assisted dying legislation for England and Wales is postponed by three weeks to allow MPs more time to review potential amendments following the disclosure of the Government’s impact assessment.

Should it pass, the new law would allow terminally ill patients with less than six months to live to legally choose to end their life, pending the agreement of two doctors and a specialist panel. Mrs Shackleton shared that witnessing her husband “physically and mentally” unwind en route to Switzerland was revealing.

In 2024, records show 37 UK residents chose to end their lives at Dignitas, whereas in 2023, the number was slightly higher at 40.

Reflecting on her final days with her husband, Mrs Shackleton said: “We had the most wonderful four days. He was laughing. He was at total peace with his decision.

“And it was in those four days that I realised that he wanted the peaceful death more than he wanted to suffer and stay with me, which was hard, but that’s how resolute he was in having this peace.

“I was his wife, we’d been together 25 years, we’d known each other since we were 18. I couldn’t do anything else but help him.”

She confessed that the most challenging part of the ordeal came after he passed away.

“There was this panic and this fear that I was leaving him,” she said. “That was a horrific experience. If the law had changed in this country, I would have been with family, family would have been with us, family would’ve been with him. But as it was, that couldn’t happen.”

Addressing those opposing the assisted dying bill, she said: “We should respect other people’s decisions. I think that we need to safeguard people.

“I think that sometimes we need to suffer other people’s choices, and when I mean suffer, I mean we have to acknowledge that while we’re not comfortable with those, that we need to respect other people, other people’s wishes.”

Anthony, who died at 59, was a renowned furniture restorer, best known for crafting rocking horses. Louise revealed her decision to speak out was due to a vow she made to him.

“I felt that my husband’s journey shouldn’t be in vain. We discussed this on our last day and my husband made me promise to tell his story,” she said. “He told me to fight and the simple thing that I’m fighting for is people to have the choice.

“This is about a dying person’s choice to either follow their journey through with disease or to die peacefully when they want to, on their terms, and have a good death. It’s that simple.”

In light of ongoing discussions, the next debate on the assisted dying bill has been delayed, enabling MPs additional time to deliberate following disputes regarding potential amendments and in anticipation of the Government’s impact statement, set to be released after Easter.

Sarah Wootton, Chief Executive of Dignity in Dying, stated: “Louise and Anthony’s experience is proof that the blanket ban on assisted dying is failing dying people and their loved ones. That British membership of Dignitas has risen more than 50 per cent in the last five years shows there is a demand for choice that is only increasing.

“For those who cannot afford the £15,000 this costs, some are left to suffer as they die, despite good care, or to take matters into their own hands. It is unacceptable that these are the choices dying people face in this country.

“Thankfully, MPs are recognising that the status quo is untenable, and we are closer than ever before to giving the choice that two thirds of us are calling out for. The Isle of Man is the first in the British Isles to change the law and Westminster and Holyrood will soon be voting on legislation.

“When MPs and MSPs come to cast their votes in the coming weeks, they must remember people like Louise and Anthony and the thousands of others who have been let down by the blanket ban, who are depending on them to change this law.”

Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of ‘Care Not Killing’, an alliance against assisted suicide, told Sky News: “These are very sad cases and there are lots of people who every day face death and/or face the death of relatives in hospices and hospitals around the UK.

“And so we do need to look at how we help people have peaceful and dignified deaths but the way to do that is by properly funding palliative care in this country at the moment. At the moment a third of palliative care funding comes from the NHS. A quarter of the people with cancer don’t get the palliative care they need.”

He also elaborated that legalising assisted suicide could lead to “abuses and coercion and people who are depressed and people who feel they are a burden on others to end their life inappropriately.”

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