Professor's final moments on TV | Bragg: quiet death appeals | Not a case for prosecution |

A mother and father who took their paralysed son to a suicide clinic in Switzerland will not face charges.

Keir Starmer, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Mark and Julie James under the Suicide Act 1961, but that a prosecution would not be in the public interest.

The decision does not set a legal precedent, but campaigners seized on it as a reason to clarify laws on assisted dying. Church leaders refused to condemn the announcement, but said that they remained firm in their opposition to any relaxation of the law.

Daniel James, 23, died at the clinic run by Dignitas on September 12. He had been paralysed from the chest down in an accident during rugby training and doctors had said that he was unlikely to make a significant recovery. He had repeatedly said that he wanted to die rather than live a “second-class existence” and had tried to commit suicide several times.

Mr Starmer said that far from encouraging their son to kill himself, the couple had tried to talk him out of it. “Daniel, as a fiercely independent young man, was not influenced by his parents to take his own life and the evidence indicates he did so despite their imploring him not to,” he said.

Mr Starmer concluded in his written assessment of the case that it was unlikely that a court would impose a custodial sentence. “In all probability the sentence would be either an absolute discharge or possibly a small fine.”

Mr James contacted Dignitas, the Swiss organisation that assists those with terminal or incurable illnesses to end their lives, in February asking for help to kill himself. In his letter, he said: “I want to die, and due to my disability I am unable to make this happen. Not a day has gone by without hoping that it will be my last. I do not want another failed attempt.”

After his death, West Mercia Constabulary interviewed his parents, who confirmed that they had helped with documentation to Dignitas, made payments to the organisation from their bank accounts and arranged to take him to Switzerland.

The debate is likely to be inflamed by a television documentary to be shown tonight in which Craig Ewert, a former university professor with motor neuron disease, will be seen ending his life. It will be the first time that an actual death from assisted suicide has been televised in Britain.

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• The best legal yarns this Christmas
• Legal school 'earned £1m by exploiting bar course'
• Axe may fall on 5,000 more City lawyers