Campaign to die with dignity: The week that was October 3 to 9, 2008

A multiple sclerosis sufferer from West Yorkshire said that a lack of legal clarity had created a dilemma over whether her husband could help her to die with dignity if her condition became unbearable, the High Court heard this week in 2008.

Wheelchair-bound Debbie Purdy, from Bradford, feared that her husband, Omar, could face a jail sentence if he helped her to travel to Switzerland or Belgium where assisted suicide was legal.

She argued that Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, was failing in his duty under human rights law to give clear guidance on when prosecution was likely. Ms Purdy’s barrister, David Pannick QC, said that she and others like her needed guidance in order to “make one of the most fundamental decisions about their lives and their death”.

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In 2009 she won her case when it went to the Lords. Debbie Purdy died in 2014 after a year in the Marie Curie Hospice in Bradford.

A political storm erupted over the resignation of Britain’s top policeman Sir Ian Blair, after he blamed the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, for his departure. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian said he could not carry on after the mayor told him the force needed fresh leadership.

Ministers were said to be “incandescent” that Sir Ian had been forced out and there were warnings that the Commissioner’s position was being politicised.

The Tories had been calling for him to go for more than a year, after he faced serious criticism over the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes by officers in the wake of the July 2005 terrorist attacks.

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There were renewed calls for a windfall tax on energy firms after figures showed a million more British households had slid into fuel poverty.

To make matters worse, government projections suggested that 3.5m homes in England alone could be spending more than 10 per cent of their income on fuel bills in 2008 – the highest level since Labour came to power.

The widow of murdered West Yorkshire policeman Ian Broadhurst wept as she paid tribute to her husband at the unveiling of a memorial in his honour.

Pc Broadhurst was shot dead at point-blank range by former US marine David Bieber in Leeds on Boxing Day 2003, while on duty as a traffic officer.

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His widow, Eilisa,was joined by family and friends at the unveiling of the memorial stone at Dib Lane in Oakwood, where her husband had been killed. The ceremony was led by film director Michael Winner, chairman of the Police Memorial Trust. Mrs Broadhurst said: “I know Ian will be looking down on us with great delight.”

Bradford University scientists were developing a new ‘guilt detector’ which could identify drug smugglers at customs by their facial expression.

The device resulting from the £500,000 two-year research project would also analyse eye movements, pupil changes and body temperature to detect malicious intent.

In foreign news, suicide bombers killed 17 people as worshippers left morning prayers at two Baghdad mosques. And at Wajihiyah, a town 60 miles from the Iraqi capital, gunmen shot dead six people including two children who were travelling in a minibus.

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The Baghdad bombings happened as Shiite worshippers were celebrating the holiday of Eid al-Fitr at the end of Ramadan. No group took responsibility for the attacks, but assaults on Shiite civilians were widely associated with Sunni extremists such as al-Qaida.

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