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19/10/2006
Assisted suicide husband receives suspended sentence
A man who helped his seriously ill wife commit suicide has been spared a prison sentence.
David March, 57, from Surrey, admitted aiding and abetting the suicide of his 59-year-old wife, Gillian March, in September this year.
Mrs Marsh, who had suffered from multiple sclerosis since 1984, had previously tried to take her own life on two separate occasions. The Old Bailey heard that on 19 September, David March arrived home to help prepare his wife's lunch, to find her with a plastic bag over her head, also having taken valium. He then helped tighten the string on the bag, held her hand, and then called the emergency services following her death. A post-mortem examination found that Mrs March had died of asphyxiation.
Speaking during the trial, Surrey police said that there was 'unequivocal evidence' that Mrs March had tried to take her own life again.
Judge Brian Barker, the Common Serjeant of London, handed down a nine-month suspended jail sentence because of what he described as the case's "exceptional circumstances".
(CL)
David March, 57, from Surrey, admitted aiding and abetting the suicide of his 59-year-old wife, Gillian March, in September this year.
Mrs Marsh, who had suffered from multiple sclerosis since 1984, had previously tried to take her own life on two separate occasions. The Old Bailey heard that on 19 September, David March arrived home to help prepare his wife's lunch, to find her with a plastic bag over her head, also having taken valium. He then helped tighten the string on the bag, held her hand, and then called the emergency services following her death. A post-mortem examination found that Mrs March had died of asphyxiation.
Speaking during the trial, Surrey police said that there was 'unequivocal evidence' that Mrs March had tried to take her own life again.
Judge Brian Barker, the Common Serjeant of London, handed down a nine-month suspended jail sentence because of what he described as the case's "exceptional circumstances".
(CL)
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