Wife of man who went to assisted dying clinic 'wanted to go on trial'

A woman who was under police investigation for accompanying her husband to an assisted dying clinic in Switzerland has said she wished her case had gone to trial so she could have proved her innocence.

- Jessica Murray

Louise Shackleton, 59, spent 10 months under investigation for assisting a suicide before North Yorkshire police announced this week that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided it was not in the public interest to prosecute her.

She handed herself in to police on legal advice after she returned to the UK from a Dignitas clinic in Zurich, where her husband, Anthony, died last December.

She said that, while she was relieved her adult children would not have to worry about her, she wished she had made her case in court.

“It wasn’t a relief for me; I would have actually preferred to go to trial, to have 12 people in a jury decide whether or not I was guilty of assisting my husband’s death in any way,” she said. “So it’s not the lawmakers making the decision, it’s actually the general public making the decision of whether or not I am guilty.”