Rutland dad Phil Newby vows to continue fight to change assisted dying law
A father-of-two with motor neurone disease has vowed to continue his fight to change the law on assisted dying after his £48,000 legal challenge failed.
Phil Newby, 49, who lives with his family near Rutland Water, said he was hugely disappointed that his High Court appeal had come to nothing.
He discovered on January 21 that judges were sticking to their decision made in November that the courts were "not an appropriate forum for the discussion of the sanctity of life".
Mr Newby had wanted them to examine the evidence for and against euthanasia before ruling on whether a change of law was needed.
He had hoped the UK would follow in the footsteps of Canada where a similar process in 2015-16 led to medically assisted dying becoming legal for people with a ‘grievous and irremediable medical condition’.
Mr Newby was diagnosed in 2014 and the condition has now progressed to the extent that he can no longer walk unaided or use his hands and lower arms.
He fears being trapped in his body for months or years, unable to move anything apart from his eyes, and feels he should be allowed to end his life before that happens.
With the judicial avenue now closed off, his only option is to convince Parliament to debate the issue with a view to changing the law.
Mr Newby said he accepted the legal process had taken a lot of his time and energy but he owed it to himself and others in his position to keep fighting.
He told the Mercury: “This isn’t how I intended to spend my time but once you’re in it you’re in it and this isn’t a sport to play half-heartedly.
“My family and kids are onboard. I’m doing this with their support.”
Right-to-die campaigners were heartened last month when Justice Secretary Robert Buckland QC reportedly said he would consider a review of the evidence, carried out by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
“It’s now about whether the Government calls an enquiry,” said Mr Newby, who lived in Stamford before moving to Rutland Water 12 years ago.
“It seems clear that the judges are now closing ranks and won’t consider this topic anymore. That only leaves us with Parliament. Is Robert Buckland going to help facilitate this or will he do a Pontius Pilate?”
Helping someone take their own life is a crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with those convicted facing a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
Mr Newby said there was clear momentum towards an “inevitable” change in the law.
In October last year 18 police and crime commissioners wrote to the Justice Secretary calling for an inquiry into the current law on euthanasia.
Neither the Royal College of Nursing nor the Royal College of Physicians oppose assisted dying and the British Medical Association and Royal College of GPs are expected to ballot their members on the subject this year.
It has become legal in a host of countries, including Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Colombia, Switzerland, and parts of the United States and Australia.
Mr Newby said it was frustrating that his legal challenge had fallen flat when both the UK and Canada share a legal system based on common law.
“We were told to expect this would run for a couple of years but we’ve been railroaded through the system and spat out the other side in 10 months,” he said.
“Our friends across the water have managed to get to grips with this so why can’t we? They have understood how to deal with this but somehow we as a country with the mother of all parliaments and legal systems and a health service that is the envy of the world are the ones lagging behind.”
Opposition campaign groups have claimed that an assisted dying law could put vulnerable people under pressure to end their lives prematurely, either through coercion or feelings of being a burden on loved ones.
“These are valid and important arguments that need to be considered but an argument is just an argument, not evidence,” said Mr Newby.
“I’m only asking for the evidence to be looked at. There are now many countries we can draw from.”
He also stressed that the law would not be created from scratch as there are existing processes around turning off life support for people in vegetative states that include around 15 legal and medical safeguards.
Mr Newby said his diagnosis six years ago had come as a “hammer blow”.
“I was fit and healthy, save for some twitching in my legs and a slightly weak left thumb,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for some quite horrific cramps that came on at night I wouldn’t have gone to the doctor’s.”
A number of tests were carried out before he and wife Charlotte were given the news.
“I had to come back from the hospital having been told I had two to three years and then pick the kids up from primary school,” he said. “It was devastating.”
Over the next few years he did all he could to look after his health and travelled to India three times and to the USA twice.
He raised money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association and began writing books with his third - a collection of short stories - due to be published soon.
As his mobility worsened he began to think about what lay ahead.
“It dawned on me how bleak my options were,” said Mr Newby, who used to work for Thomas Cook before running his own environmental consultancy business.
“I could let the disease take its course. I was lucky as it was slow progressing but that could also mean slow dying. I could be locked in my body with only my eyes moving for months or years.
“The second option is going abroad. I’d pay a large sum of money to die in a foreign country but you have to be fit enough to travel so it effectively brings your death forward.
“The last one is to get help. I can’t use my hands to take my own life but anyone involved risks a 14-year prison sentence. I just thought there has to be another option.”
Around 1,100 people donated money to his legal challenge, many of whom had loved ones with their own “chilling” stories about how the current law had failed them.
“I felt a duty and a responsibility to do good by them,” said Mr Newby. “We provided an opportunity for the judges to look at this in a very sober and intelligent way.
“But now that it is over, the intention is to use the media and political platform that we have created to get politicians to conduct a proper review. If they do, we will submit our nine box files of evidence to the process - to demonstrate that our current law is cruel and that an intelligently crafted assisted dying law is desperately needed.”
