London - A woman who is terminally ill with motor-neurone diseases yesterday won the first round of an historic legal battle challenging Britain's law on assisted suicide, reports Rachel Donnelly.
In the first case of it's kind, Mrs Diane Pretty (42) who is paralysed below the neck and is fed through a tube, won permission to seek a judicial review by the Director of Public Prosecutions ( DPP) that it would not rule out prosecuting her husband if he helped her to commit suicide.
Mrs Pretty and her husband Brian, from Luton in Befordshire, launched their legal battle after writing to the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, and the DPP, Mr David Calvert-Smith, seeking assurances that Mr Pretty would not be charged under the Suicide Act if he helped her to die.