Euthanasia director quits

A second senior figure in the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (VES) has stepped down in a dispute over the expulsion of a former chairman, according to reports yesterday. Jean Davies has resigned as a director just days after the resignation as president of the broadcaster Sir Ludovic Kennedy.

A second senior figure in the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (VES) has stepped down in a dispute over the expulsion of a former chairman, according to reports yesterday. Jean Davies has resigned as a director just days after the resignation as president of the broadcaster Sir Ludovic Kennedy.

The departures follow the recent decision to deprive the former chairman Michael Irwin of his membership. Dr Irwin stepped down as chairman last year after he was arrested on suspicion of helping a terminally ill friend to commit suicide. He was not charged.

Ms Davies wrote to the VES chairman Richard Belton yesterday, saying she did not find his conduct of the 15 July board meeting to be of the standard the board had a right to expect.

"Dr Irwin should not, of course, have offered to 'ease the passing' of a dying friend. He resigned from the VES board, knowing that, although the patient died without his help, he had, in effect, offered to break the law. To pursue him to the point of expelling him ... was out of all proportion to his offence."

She said she would continue to spend a high proportion of her time trying to achieve the decriminalisation of medical help to the dying, as proposed in the Bill under discussion at present in the House of Lords.