A daughter who took her stroke-hit mother to die ‘with dignity’ at Dignitas in Switzerland has shared how police came knocking on her door the day after she arrived home.
Mandy Appleyard’s mother, 83-year-old Janet Mary Appleyard, travelled to Switzerland with her two daughters in February 2021 where she took a drink to end her life.
Just less than two years earlier, in May 2019, Janet suffered a life-altering stroke which left her unable to move around, speak properly or go to the toilet by herself.
Writhing in distress and pain, she reportedly told her daughters: ‘Stroke should have killed me. Every night I go to bed and try to die.
‘I want to die. Help me. Please.’
The maximum penalty in the UK for assisting a suicide is 14 years’ imprisonment.
Mandy Appleyard (left) has told how police came banging on her door after her stroke-hit mother Janet Mary Appleyard (right) travelled to Switzerland to ‘die with dignity’ by assisted suicide. Pictured: The pair before Janet’s stroke
In a first-person piece in The Times, Mandy, pictured, explained how her mother suffered a life-altering stroke which left her unable to move around, speak properly or go to the toilet by herself
In an exclusive first-person piece in The Times, daughter Mandy, a journalist, explained how her mother was a fit and healthy 81-year-old prior to the stroke which left her severely disabled.
Janet had discussed assisted dying with her daughter after watching Terry Pratchett’s documentary about Dignitas, the nonprofit assisted dying organisation whose principle is ‘To live with dignity — to die with dignity’.
‘If anything awful happens to me, I want to go there,’ Janet reportedly told her daughter more than once.
Two days after her stroke, Mandy explained how Janet ‘mimed slitting her throat and firing a gun at her head’ to tell her daughters she wanted to die.
Mandy and her sister urged their mother to wait, and tried to shine a positive light on the tragedy, but Janet remained adamant she wanted to die ‘with dignity’.
After three months confined to a hospital bed, Janet went home to East Yorkshire, also staying with Mandy near York and living in a care home for two months. She was supported by a team of carers, physiotherapists, speech therapists, a psychiatrist and a psychologist.
Toilet trips took 15 minutes, according to Mandy, and ‘left her so exhausted she’d need to sleep for an hour afterwards’.
The mother’s speech was also severely impaired after the stroke damaged her control over her mouth and throat muscles.
Janet is pictured with her two daughters. After the stroke, Janet reportedly told her family: ‘Stroke should have killed me. Every night I go to bed and try to die’
‘Her real tragedy was that she was as intelligent and perceptive as ever, but had no way of expressing herself effectively,’ Mandy wrote in The Times.
‘On days when she was tired, it was difficult to understand anything she said and she became tongue-tied and tearful.’
Janet reportedly begged her daughters to smother her with a pillow, and even wondered if she cut cut her wrists with a knife in bed.
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Being unable to move around, she feared burglars and fire, according to her daughter, and one night her air mattress deflated, leaving her imprisoned in a metal bed frame.
Janet told her daughters she wanted to go to Switzerland, saying: ‘Sorry. Don’t want to leave you, but can’t live like this,’ according to Mandy. ‘Can’t walk. Can’t talk. One hand. One leg. No good.’
Her daughters bought a mobility van to try to take her outside but Janet was too afraid to leave the house.
Ending life by doctor-assisted suicide in Switzerland is legal, but assisting a suicide in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is a crime which can see you in prison for up to 14 years. As a result, several psychiatrists and psychologists in the UK refused to support Janet’s application to Dignitas, Mandy wrote.
Meanwhile, a Humberside Police officer and a social worker arrived at Janet’s house one day when Mandy’s sister was looking after her, asked if Janet was planning to go to Dignitas and used the word ‘murder’ at her daughter.
After finally being granted approval by one psychiatrist, the family’s plans were then halted for a long period of time by a number of factors, including restrictions brought by the Covid pandemic and travel exemption grants by the Swiss government.
Janet’s Dignitas bill came to £8,380, which covered the assisted suicide, the doctor’s attendance and prescription fees, administration charges by Swiss authorities and cremation in Switzerland.
Additionally, the flight to Zurich was £10,500, all of which Janet used her life-savings to pay for.
Due to Covid restrictions Janet said goodbye to her sisters over a teary Facetime call, according to Mandy, but ‘smiled a lot’ on the plane over to Switzerland.
A Swiss doctor arrived at the trio’s apartment to ask Janet why she wanted to die, and whether she was likely to change her mind, among several other questions.
At around 10am the next day, Janet said she was ready. ‘My sister and I moved her onto the bed and let her settle as we took a seat at either side of her and took her hands in ours,’ Mandy wrote.
After drinking a substance to stop her throwing up, handed to her by an assistant, Janet said she was ready for the fatal drink – ‘a barbiturate that induces coma, then death’, wrote Mandy.
‘Brave and beautiful to the end, her eyes closed and she fell unconscious within seconds,’ wrote the daughter.
Both daughters kissed their mother on the cheek, cut a lock of their mother’s hair and packed to go home, which felt ‘wrong’ given the passing of their mother, according to Mandy.
They flew home on Saturday, with a police officer banging urgently and announcing herself on the other side of the door the following day.
‘When we spoke the next day, the police said they needed to interview me under caution following a phone call from a third party who had reported a ”possible safeguarding issue”’, wrote Mandy.
Nearly two years later Mandy remained under criminal investigation, with police requesting access to her bank accounts as well as her mother’s. They also took witness statements from a friend, family and a carer.
Meanwhile, they asked Dignitas for information about their mother’s case and asked for the video where she spoke of her decision to die.
Mandy and her sister spent ‘thousands’ on a lawyer who ‘promised the earth but delivered nothing’ until they eventually replaced him with a solicitor who worked on the case free of charge.
On December 16 last year, Mandy’s lawyer forwarded her an email from Humberside Police, which reportedly read: ‘I can confirm that… the CPS… decision is to take no further action. It is not in the public interest to pursue a prosecution on [sic] this case.’
‘I was tearful, relieved beyond words by this decision,’ wrote Mandy.
For help, call Samaritans for free on 116 123 or visit samaritans.org.
