Mum who ended son's life dies at 77

A MOTHER who admitted to helping her terminally ill son "quietly end his life" 40 years ago has died, her family announced yesterday.

- Hanna Geissler

Antonya Cooper, 77, supported efforts to change the law on assisted dying after seeing her young son Hamish suffer.

He had been diagnosed with incurable neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive children's cancer that caused tremendous pain.

Antonya, of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, told the BBC she had given Hamish a large dose of morphine to "remove the pain" before he died aged seven in 1981.

She said: "It was the right thing to do. My son was facing the most horrendous suffering and intense pain, I was not going to allow him to go through that."

Antonya had herself been diagnosed with incurable breast, pancreatic and liver cancer.

Peaceful