The Law

“Assisting someone else’s suicide is a crime in Britain – though you probably won’t be prosecuted if you do it for pure compassion.   However, taking someone to Switzerland could still affect your ability to inherit anything under their Will”

In order to decide whether or not it is legally “safe” for you to travel to Switzerland with someone who is intending to use the services of one of the Centres, you need to understand the implications under both Criminal Law and Civil Law.   If you break a criminal law you get punished.   If you break a contract or something else under the civil law then you get sued and will have to pay money if you lose.   Criminal Courts impose fines and jail sentences.   Civil Courts award damages.

STOP PRESS June 2026. This section of the website describes the law in England and Wales as it is now. The current Bill in Parliament faces its first crucial vote in September this year. Even if it is passed, however, it will not become operational until 2029. Until then the existing law, as described below, will continue to apply. After 2029, people still choosing to take a relative to Switzerland will face possible prosecution and forfeiture of inheritance.

Assisting a suicide is a crime

Taking criminal law first, suicide itself is not illegal in the UK.   Therefore, attempted suicide is not illegal either.   Both were removed as criminal offences by the Suicide Act of 1961.

One hundred years previously, things had been very different.   Suicide was not only criminal but also regarded as “sinful” by most churches.   If you tried to commit suicide but failed, you would nonetheless have been guilty of “wounding with intent to kill” – for which the penalty was hanging.   That was a somewhat off-beat version of what we would now call a “win-win” situation. Additionally, someone who died by suicide would not be buried in a graveyard but outside any “holy ground”.

However, that same legislation in 1961 to legalise suicide also confirmed that assisting a suicide remained unlawful.   Its words are as follows :

​A person (D) commits an offence if 
a.  (D) does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another person, or
b.  (D)’s act was intended to encourage or assist the suicide or attempted suicide of another person.

These are very wide clauses.   Note that they say “or” and not “and”.   In other words, if someone tells you they are fed up with their life and want to end it then if you simply say “well, yes, I can understand why”, you are putting your first toe in the water of criminality.   This is the background to the behaviour of everyone from the Samaritans to your local doctor.   No one can ever safely agree with you.   They are, in effect, legally obliged to talk you out of the idea.

Indeed, the moment someone says they are thinking of topping themselves there seems to be a society-wide assumption that they must be mentally ill – however logical their reasoning.

This offence of “assisting or encouraging” a suicide carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.   Technically, that is just the case in England and Wales.   The relevant legislation in Northern Ireland is the Criminal Justice Act 1966.   In Scotland, there is no specific crime of assisted dying but (at least at the time of writing this) there would be a possibility of prosecution for culpable homicide.

It is easy, therefore, to make the law sound as though everything is cut and dried.   The law seems clear and its catchment net is very wide.  Happily, however, things are not so clear as they may sound.

The DPP Guidance

There is a clear distinction between the committing of an offence and the chances of being prosecuted for it.  Under the “guidelines” issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions (Keir Starmer at the time) in 2009, a prosecution should be regarded as unlikely if:

• The helper was solely motivated by compassion.
• The person being helped had made a “voluntary, clear, settled and informed” decision to end their life.
• The helper reports what they have done to the police and fully assists with any investigation.

However, the guidelines also say that a prosecution should be regarded as more likely if :

• The person being helped is under 18.
• The helper had motivations other than compassion, such as being a beneficiary.
• The helper seeks to apply pressure or was unduly persuasive.
• The helper was a stranger until shortly before the death.
• It is the helper who does the physical act of ending the life, even if the person being helped was incapable of ending it themselves.

In October 2023 these guidelines were extended to say that a prosecution would be less likely if the victim had clearly wanted to die and the suspect was under “emotional pressure” to assist. However, a prosecution would be more likely if the suspect was a medical professional and the victim was under their care.

Overall, these guidelines simply try to distinguish between malicious homicide on the one hand and compassionate assistance on the other. Although they are now very detailed (see the DPP website) that distinction can helpfully be used to work out where action will or will not be taken.

This is not a full list of the guidelines but it does cover the most salient.   Also, of course, these are only “guidelines”.   They cannot be regarded as any sort of guarantee that a prosecution will not be brought.   The circumstances of each case are bound to be different.   As “guidelines”, they could always be changed at the choice of the next Director of Public Prosecutions.

A problem with inheritance – Ninian vs Findlay & Others

Then there is the even-more-difficult question of inheritance, which falls under the civil law.

In the case of Dunbar v Plant in 1998, the Court held that since assisted suicide is a crime under the Suicide Act then the assistor was not entitled to inherit from the estate of the deceased.   The well-established forfeiture rule “provides that if a person unlawfully kills another, they are not able to inherit from their estate”.   

The big question left unanswered by the wording of the Suicide Act is whether or not “assisting” a suicide includes making the arrangements for a visit to one of the Swiss centres.   In the case of Ninian v. Findlay & Others in 2019 the High Court ruled that Mrs Sarah Ninian had committed a criminal offence when she made the arrangements for their visit to Switzerland and when she accompanied her husband on the journey.   The fact that she did not actually perform the act which ended his life was not considered relevant.   The guidelines were noted by the Court, as was the decision by the DPP and the police not to bring any criminal action.   However, an offence had been committed and the civil issue of forfeiture then came to the centre of the stage.

In the very particular case of Ninian v Findlay & Others the case was brought by Sarah Ninian herself.   She was seeking a ruling that the Court should use its discretion to exclude the forfeiture rule and allow her to inherit from her husband’s estate as they had both intended.   Having ruled that she had indeed committed a criminal offence, the Court went on to give Mrs Ninian the discretionary exclusion she wanted.   She had been motivated by compassion rather than inheritance, she had not initially favoured her husband’s decision, they had been married for 34 years and her husband had clearly been mentally competent and recorded his view.   Perhaps most important of all, the other beneficiaries from his death (i.e. the people who would have stood to gain if the Court had decided not to exercise its discretion) all supported Sarah Ninian’sapplication.

The Ninian decision was supported in October 2024 by Mr Justice Trower in an application brought by Philip Morris and also in 2025 in the case of Grant v Murphy (re: Peace).

Clearly, these are interesting precedents but they cannot be taken too far.   If an estate was substantial and if some of the relatives felt they had been unfairly treated in the Will then their lawyer could certainly choose to claim that forfeiture was involved and that the beneficiary who had travelled with the deceased should not be allowed to inherit anything.   The Court in the Ninian case was keen to point out that the case was being decided on its own merits and that its role as a precedent was therefore limited.  

It is easy to see that a different Court could reach a different decision.   If, for example, a much younger spouse of a wealthy elderly patient had made all the arrangements for the visit and had then been included rather generously in the Will, a challenge would (I believe) succeed.   Once again, an offence would have been committed.   If the deceased had given no longer-term indication of his or her intentions then, quite probably, the DPP Guidelines would not be called into play.   In other words, the new, young spouse could find themselves behind bars and disinherited as a result.

In reality, such a case would be unlikely to arise because the safety mechanisms of all four Swiss Centres would be sufficient to stop it.   If it got through the net, however, the young spouse would live to regret it.

Police involvement

Just over 100 British people went to Switzerland for a Voluntary Assisted Death in 2025.   In most cases the police were not involved at all because they didn’t know about them.   In cases that are brought to the attention of the police, however, they are obliged to investigate and make a report to the Crown Prosecution Service.   That is where the decision is taken as to whether a prosecution should be brought.   And, invariably, the decision is that it should not be.

Yet the police investigations can become a serious problem in their own right.   In recent years there have been several cases of dawn raids, seized computers, confiscated phones and long subsequent delays.   These tactics vary vastly and unpredictably from one police force to another.   There is no obligation to report a VAD visit to the police – and, indeed, if no “help” has been provided then it is difficult to know why such a report should be made at all.   However, the DPP guidance is clear; accompanying relatives are “less likely” to be prosecuted if they report what has happened and help the police with their subsequent enquiries.   Any legal advice, therefore, will always be that you should make such a report.

In general terms, the police have proved to be properly sensitive when dealing with recently-bereaved families but, inevitably, there have been exceptions.

This is clearly an area where the law is still developing.   In the meantime, accompaniment of any kind cannot be expressed as “risk-free”. The following little list should help – both in handling any police inquiries and in dealing with inheritance issues

Ten actions before you go

1        Make a Will and make sure no one is going to be surprised by its contents.   

2        Personally, do as much of the paperwork and travel arrangements as you can.

3        Tell your family what you are going to do.

4        Make sure that anyone attending the VAD with you makes their own arrangements and pays their own costs

5        Make a brief and dateable video clip of yourself emphasising that this is your choice, that it has long been your intention, that no one else has wanted you to do it and giving the main reason for it.

6        Leave a clear “evidence trail” indicating, so far as possible, that all the arrangements and preparatory work were done by you

7        Consider (and this would cost about £2,000) getting a pre-emptive professional opinion to the effect that you are “of sound mind” and that you have the capacity to take the decision.   Halcyon Doctors  may be able to help.   They are based in Hitchin, Hertfordshire but travel all over.

8        Remind everyone that a prosecution will be considered “less likely” if, after the VAD has taken place, they report (to the police) what has happened.

9        If someone needs to travel with you, because you are in a wheelchair for example, then make sure that their “help” is the minimum of what is necessary and that it is being provided at your specific request.

10      Consider getting legal opinions before you go.   If you are happy to be called a “high net worth individual” then use London-based Kingsley Napley LLP.   If you are of more modest means then use Downs Solicitors LLP of Dorking in Surrey.