Assisted suicide laws to stay same.

PRIME Minister Gordon Brown has set himself firmly against any relaxation of the law on assisted suicide.

Mr Brown said he was not prepared to create any legislation which might put vulnerable people under pressure to agree to end their own lives. The law should make "absolutely clear" it recognises the value of human life, he said.

Recent months have seen mounting calls for a change in the law in the wake of a series of cases of British people who have travelled to Switzerland to die, including Reg Crew, from Hunts Cross, in Liverpool.

At present, the law makes it a criminal offence to "aid, abet, counsel or procure" someone else's suicide.

But the Director of Public Prosecutions decided this month not to charge the parents of Daniel James, who accompanied their 23- year-old tetraplegic son to the Dignitas clinic in Zurich to allow him to die. Also, the last moments of terminally ill Craig Ewert as he underwent assisted suicide at the clinic were shown on British TV.

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Reg Crew