Assisted dying: Son calls for law change after father was left 'beaten husk of a man'

Pat Malone told ITV News' Bob Cruwys his father was left "without any dignity" after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

A man whose father had terminal cancer and pleaded for someone "to put poison in his water" has voiced his support for legalising assisted dying.

Pat Malone, from Bodmin, Cornwall, said his father endured "appalling pain that couldn't be relieved" in the weeks leading up to his death from cancer in the 1990s.

Mr Malone said his father "was a big, strong man", but was left "a beaten husk of a man, rolling around in a hospital bed without any dignity" before he died.

He added that the final four weeks of his father's life were "like something out of a horror film".

It comes as a new bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales was formally introduced in the House of Commons on Wednesday 16 October.

The debate and first vote on the bill are not expected to take place until the end of November, but it will be the first time the issue has been voted on in the Commons in almost a decade.

Mr Malone said: "We should have been able to help him. If he was a farm animal we would've been prosecuted, and rightly so for causing unnecessary suffering, but he wasn't a farm animal he was a man.

"The memory of those last four weeks is just horrendous, and we could've stopped that.

"If I'd had any courage, I could have put his pillow over his face and leant on it, and I often think now that that's what I should've done."

Ultimately, Mr Malone's father died from natural causes.

Explained: The Assisted Dying Bill and why some say it's controversial

Mr Malone said in 2010, his brother Michael took his own life at home after being diagnosed with the same incurable cancer as their father.

He said his brother was determined to avoid the extremely painful death their father had endured and wanted his wife Vicky to be with him as he died.

She faced a six month police investigation and was found to have done nothing wrong, but Mr Malone said it added to the trauma of her experience.

"On top of the trauma of his death, to be subjected to that sort of behaviour, even though the police were as sympathetic as they possibly could be, added torment to trauma in a way that was really unconscionable," he said.

Last year, Mr Malone's sister, Trudi, also chose to end her own life aged 71, after being diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease.

She travelled to Switzerland where assisted suicide is legal, but Mr Malone told ITV News West Country "she should have been able to die at home".

"She should have been in her own bed, with her family around her and the dogs on the bed, and maybe somebody even to hold her hand," he said.

Mr Malone is urging MPs to support the legalisation of assisted dying in England and Wales, and said he believes the current law is "out of date".

"It belongs in the last century and it needs to be consigned to the last century," he said. "I think in memory of my siblings and my father a law change cannot come soon enough."

Opponents of assisted dying say that legalisation could put pressure on many to end their lives.

Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who introduced the assisted dying bill to Parliament, said the legislation is “about people who are terminally ill” when asked about the concerns disabled people have about the risks of legalising assisted dying.

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