Daughter defends father's Swiss clinic suicide (From The Northern Echo)

Daughter defends father's Swiss clinic suicide

3:45pm Thursday 2nd September 2010 in

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A DAUGHTER today defended her disabled father's decision to end his life in a Swiss clinic after which two of his friends were arrested on suspicion of assisting his suicide.

Retired engineer Douglas Sinclair, 76, suffered from the debilitating disorder multiple system atrophy and his body was shutting down when he travelled from a care home in Jarrow, South Tyneside, to an assisted suicide clinic in Zurich.

He died on July 28 and a notice in his local newspaper stated the widower passed away peacefully and with dignity following an illness courageously borne.

His daughter, Helen Sinclair, from Darlington, said that her father, a popular and caring man, was left devastated by the loss of his wife Monica 10 years ago from leukaemia.

Her father made a clear decision to "die with dignity," she said.