A physically healthy woman who ended her life in a Swiss assisted suicide clinic last week discovered she could end her life this way after viewing an ITV documentary about a similar case three years previously.
Wendy Duffy, a 56-year-old former care worker from the West Midlands who died at the Pegasos clinic in Switzerland on Friday 24 April, did not have any physical illness but said she was unable to recover from the death of her 23-year-old son.
“That’s when I died too, inside”, Wendy said. “I’m not the same person now as I was. I used to feel things. I’d go to funerals after Marcus died, and I’d feel nothing. It’s why I had to give up work. You can’t be a carer if you don’t care, and I’m sorry, but I don’t. I don’t care about anything any more. I exist. I don’t live”, she added.
Wendy had attempted to take her own life nine months after her son’s death but, after failing, wished to have her life ended at Pegasos, claiming they would do a “neater” job.
“I could step off a motorway bridge or a tower block but that would leave anyone finding me dealing with that for the rest of their lives”, she stated. “I don’t want to put anyone through that”.
Wendy kept her four siblings in the dark as to when she was planning to end her life.
In an interview just before she boarded her flight to Switzerland, Wendy said, “It will be hard for everyone. But I want to die, and that’s what I’m going to do”.
“But it’s what I want and I’m going to get it one way or another”, she said. “I’m sorry if that makes me sound arrogant”.
Wendy heard about Pegasos after the death of British man Alastair Hamilton, who died without his family’s knowledge
Wendy said she found out that she could end her life at Pegasos in 2024 following an ITV investigation into the death of the 47-year-old British teacher, Alastair Hamilton.
Alastair, from London, had been experiencing issues with his physical health, but had been given no diagnosis.
He told his mother that he was on holiday in Paris, visiting a friend, when in reality he had travelled to Pegasos to end his life. His mother, Judith, became worried when Alastair stopped responding to her phone calls. It was only when she reported him missing to the police that she was informed that he had died at the assisted suicide clinic in 2023.
“We contacted the police and they found out from his bank records he’d actually gone to Pegasos. They had to get Swiss police involved, the British Embassy was involved, and Interpol. It was a nightmare for us to get any information”, Judith, now 84, said.
Judith said that assisted suicide is “just such a heartbreaking scenario for [the] families left behind”.
“I am nothing like the woman I was before he died. It’s just a permanent sadness in my heart and although I’ve got other children and grandchildren it doesn’t make up for the one that’s not here”, she added.
“You just feel as if you could grab hold of them, hold them tight for two or three years – maybe their outlook on life would have changed. We were robbed of that chance”.
Wendy’s death comes as the assisted suicide Bill in England and Wales falls
Wendy’s death by assisted suicide came in the same week that the assisted suicide Bill for England and Wales failed in the House of Lords.
The assisted suicide Bill will now fall when the current Parliamentary session ends and will not become law, after the final day of Committee Stage of the Bill was completed last Friday, the same day as Wendy’s death, without the Bill passing the Lords.
The fall of the assisted suicide Bill comes as new polling suggests that the Bill would likely fail if it were reintroduced to the House of Commons, and an analysis reveals there have been near-unprecedented levels of opposition to the Bill in the House of Lords.
New polling from JL Partners has also revealed that the public does not support Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill, even among those who support assisted suicide in principle, and it does not support forcing the Bill into law without the consent of the House of Lords.
Another recent poll published from More In Common showed that the majority of the public does not support bypassing the House of Lords to force through the assisted suicide Bill, as would occur if the Parliament Acts were invoked in relation to the Bill in the next parliamentary session, as Lord Falconer has threatened.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “It is very sad that Wendy Duffy found herself in the situation where she felt the only option available to her was to end her life, and the same goes for Alastair Hamilton before her”.
“People who are suffering – whether with physical or mental problems – should be made to feel cared for and supported, and should be given all the help they require to live full lives. The assisted suicide Bill, as written, would have provided assistance to a person in ending their own life due to depression if they were thought to have six months or less to live. Fortunately, the Bill has failed”.
“With the fall of the assisted suicide Bill in Westminster, it is time for politicians to work collectively to ensure that high-quality care and support, including end-of-life and palliative care, is made available to all”.
