Tony and Jane Nicklinson, Assisted suicide campaigners HARDtalk

storms swept across the east coast of the US four days ago, causing

some rivers to burst their banks. Here in the UK, the government it

has indicated controversial plans to shake up the banking system

could be delayed until after the election. The reforms are meant to

protect taxpayers from the effects of any future financial crisis. --

the government has indicated. Now it is time for HARDtalk. Should the

law ever give one human being at the right to kill another? That is

the question at the heart of this special edition of HARDtalk, which

comes from the home of Tony and Jane Nicklinson. Tony is completely

paralysed - he wants to die. Jane wants to help him. Currently,

British law stands in their wake. If Tony were to be killed, would it

be murder or mercy? -- stance in Tony and Jane Nicklinson were

married 25 years ago. Six years ago of their world was changed forever.

-- six years ago when their world. Tony suffered a massive stroke at

the age of 52. He survived, just, but was completely paralysed. The

only movement he can control is in his eyes and his blinking but his

brain and ability to think are unimpaired. Tony communicates using

his eyes and blinks to pick out letters on a board. It is low and,

for him, deeply frustrating. Having lived like this for six years, he

has had enough. He wants to die. As he cannot kill himself, he wants

someone else to end his life for him. Right now, that would be

called murder. Tony and Jane would British law changed to give him the

right to die. Using a specially adapted computer, Tony explains to

me his motivation. Tony Nicklinson, welcome to HARDtalk. I want to ask

you the most basic question of all. Why do you want to die? At the

moment I want to die because I can see the future being made worse for

me than it is now. I feel the next 20 years also with trepidation. --

I fear of. I think this is as good as it gets and it is downhill from

here. What I know is that not having a plan causes me anguish

than people who oppose me do not understand. I am fed like a baby

with baby food, cannot do anything for myself and everything is a

matter of routine. I live like this for the rest of my life so is it

any wonder I am not enthusiastic about living? You want somebody

else to be given the legal right to kill you. Would that not create an

extraordinarily dangerous precedent, particularly for the most

vulnerable disabled people? course it is dangerous if it is not

done with care but I do not subscribe to the idea that just

because it is difficult we should not do it. There is plenty of

examples around the world where it has been done successfully and we

can look to them for guidance. I have devised a scheme that shows

promise so that if I go, anybody can. I ate do not say it is easy,

just possible. -- I do not say. Do you really believe that the non-

disabled, who can legally commit suicide... This is Tony before his

stroke - an active sportsman, a bit of an adventurer and proud father

of two daughters. Now Jane and a team of helpers have to do

everything for him. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He is not

terminally ill but despite the love in this time he is terminally fed

up with his life. That is something that Jane Nicklinson has to live

with. Jane Nicklinson, welcome to HARDtalk. I just heard Tony

expressed to me his despair, his sense of hopelessness. How hard is

it for you to deal with your own husband saying that sort of thing?

It is very hard. It is not unexpected. From the day he was

taken ill, we knew what the prognosis was and the day would

come but this is what he would want. That is the kind of person he is.

You sort of get used to it in a way. We have been thinking about Tony's

death for the last six years. It does not make it easier but you get

used to it. Has his despair deepened over time? In the very

early days, I do not think he was aware of the prognosis. It was one

of the first things he said to me when he started using his

communication board. I do not think it has been worse. It was bad from

the word go. Tony says he wishes he had not been saved by the doctors

those six years ago when he had that terrible stroke. Do you say

the same thing? Do you wish the doctors had not saved him? Yes and

no. At the time when it happened, my daughters were with me and we

all said we do not want to live like this. It is a terrible thing

to say but, yes. If we have a good day, maybe not but if it is what he

wants it is what I want. We have little sense of how you and Tony

Live your daily lives. -- a little. What are the biggest frustrations

for Tony in his daily life? His biggest frustration is not being

able to to communicate. He always said if he could speak it would not

be so difficult. It is just everything is total frustration for

him. For him and also for you. need different way for me. For him

it is day-to-day life, getting up, eating. For me it is frustrating

because seen him like this, what life has become for us... For what

I am getting out... We will get to the legal issues in a minute. --

what I am getting at. It is strange to talk about Tony when he is right

here with us. Tony clearly believes his life has been ruined. The

question for you is whether you believe your life has been ruined

too? I suppose so, yes. I cannot say no because it has. We had so

many dreams of the things we were going to do. Yeah. (CRIES). He is

gets more and more difficult. Therefore, it would be better for

you if Tony were to die, to use that right to die. I do not want

him to die. There is no way that I want him to die. I see what his

life is. Maybe I do want him to die, not at the moment but the time will

come when he has had enough of life. OK, if it is what he wants then

that is fine. Let's talk about the legal issues. Right now, of course,

given his disabilities, Tony does not have the option of taking his

own life. He cannot do that. If someone was to help him, that would

be murder. Is it your and Tony's wish to fundamentally change the

law? If Fife help Tony to die I would be charged with murder.

would be no different if I killed someone in cold blood. We want the

law changing. So-called mercy killings should be treated

differently. A change in the law on murder - that is what we are after.

That is a really profound change, isn't it? You are saying the law

would in some way have to create an avenue for somebody to be allowed

to take another person's life. Given our tradition of war, our

notions about the sanctity of life, it would be extraordinarily

difficult and a radical thing to do. How do you think it would be done?

I am not sure where we are going for now. It is in the pipeline and

we are discussing it with our solicitors. They feel we do have a

case. Why should Tony be denied the right to take his own life? It is

what he wants and what he is asking for. There should be some system in

place. We are not saying it should be legalised Point Blank, going out

and kill someone and say, they told me they wanted to die. There would

have to be a procedure in place. note UN Tony have talked about this

in detail. You would have to. -- you and Tony. Would you be the one

to end his life? I think so, yes. I want to be the one to do it. He

does not want me to. He wants to make it legal for other people to

do what so I do not have to. He wants me to give him a sedative and

then someone else come in and give him the euthanasia so I would not

have to do it and he would not have to see me. You would have to have a

doctor's agreement to be involved. Doctors have made it plain time and

time again they will not countenance being involved in the

explicit taking of life in this way. It would not necessarily have to be

a doctor. I could do it. I think I could. I have been asked this so

many times. I think I could do it. I am sure there are doctors out

there that would come forward. argument against it is that it

opens up an extraordinarily dangerous precedent, that if it

becomes, in certain situations, legal to kill the disabled, the

most vulnerable in our society, that very soon summed vulnerable

people may feel that almost they are obliged to take the option of

choosing death. Not if there was some sort of scheme in place. It

would obviously have to be very carefully thought out. There would

have to be a process you would have to go through to be able to do it.

Tony has devised a scheme of his own. Whether it is that was

something similar, it would have to be carefully thought. If there can

be a way for it to be done, why can anyone else take their life but

Tony cannot? He knows what he wants to do but he physically cannot do

it. You say he knows what he wants to do. Another argument from those

in the religious community and others is that minds can be changed.

Tony could change his mind. Have you discounted that? You could say

that about straightforward suicide. Suicide is legal for able-bodied

people. Their minds could be changed if things were different.

Why is ordinary suicide legal? in relatives of suicide victims

would say, if only I had that opportunity to talk them out of it,

to make the case that it was the wrong option to take. If only, I

might have saved them. Because Tony cannot do it for himself, society,

starting with you, has that option to try and persuade him. He has

been like this for six years and he has not changed his mind yet. Who

knows, in the future? That is life, isn't it? I know Tony, for example,

using his computer, is writing his memoirs. You have described how he

is enjoying that process of remembering his past life, writing

about it, some of the adventures you two had together. That suggests

to me that there is still a way to get some enjoyment out of life and

that seems important. It is not enough, though, is it? It is not

enough for him. He wants to say something. Can I do it? Yes, of

course. What a... -- what...if...I...feel...

Is...not...the...same. As...ordinary? The reason why Tony

wants to commit suicide cannot be solved. This is as good as life is

ever going to be for him. argument made by those who oppose

the kind of legal changes you want to see is that palliative care can

make your life better. There are ways in which care can improve the

quality of your life. Is it too late for that now? There is nothing

really. Everyone is different. We all have different expectations

from life. If you knew Tony before, he is an ex-rugby player, life of

the party, adventurer, we travelled around the world, he was good at

his job. All the things he loved about life he cannot do. I just

wonder how far you are prepared to go, the two of you, when it comes

to see him through this wish to die. After we see through the court case,

the only option Tony has is to starve himself. He could go to

You are referring to the fact it is legal to assist suicide in

Switzerland. Could Dignitas create a system and where it could be an

assisted suicide? I have been in touch with them at what they said

they could set up a system and he could operate it with a switch.

question is, if that is a possibility, of course it would

take money, if that is a possibility, why spend so much time

and effort going through the British courts. Everything I have

seen in the court papers, from traditional verdicts in the past,

to the words of judges, it suggests it is highly unlikely they will

modify the law on murder. Tony does not see why he should go to switch

alone to die. He wants to die at home with his family around him,

not in some strange country. -- go to Switzerland. The journey itself

would be incredibly traumatic for him. Why should he have to? I ask

you some very sensitive questions about your feelings about Tory's

death and whether, to be brutal about it, if Tony's end would be a

release for you. That raises the issue of vested interests from

those around somebody who is suffering, as Tony is. Can you see

the danger is there, but it might come to a point where, if the laws

you wanted a past, family members, others with an interest, they could

be persuading vulnerable people to end their lives? I am sure that

happens with ordinary suicide cases. Ordinary suicide is not legal. I am

sure people are coerced into committing suicide. It could happen.

What safeguards could you imagine to prevent it? If you allow people

-- the systems must be added to do enough. I think it Tony has come up

with the idea that the judge would have to be involved at every stage

of the process and there would be months and months of a cooling-off

period between an initial decision to allow the death and the actual

implementation of that decision. Do you really believe that would be

enough? I think so, yes. We all know what the pitfalls are and

hopefully this system would be able to prevent those. Tony's life is

hell, basically. He is being forced to live it. It is like a form of

torture, you could say. There has to be a way that something could be

sorted out. Each case has to be taken on its on merit. There are

indications that the British public has a great deal of sympathy with

many of the arguments you are making and, in the past, when there

have been deaths which have been associated with this idea of mercy

killing, jurors have tended to show sympathy for those behind those

killings in their verdicts. Does that make you consider the

possibility of ignoring the law, and SES taking the law into your

own hands, and relying on the sympathy of a jury? -- in essence.

That is a big risk to date. As much as I love him, I am not sure if I

am prepared to spend time in prison. -- big risk to take. He would not

let me do it. It would have to be legal. I have got my children to

think about. No, I could not do that. Have you talked about it?

has always made it very clear from the word go that they do is no way

he did let me do it because he would not want to risk it. I admire

people that can do it. I know there have been some quite high profile

cases recently. It takes a lot of guts to be able to do something

like that. I personally could not. I wonder how some people would

respond to this. You on a full-time carer, it dominates your life, you

talk about your daughters, they want to see their father but what

do they say to you? They are 100 % behind everything that we're doing.

When we have talked about just doing it and breaking the law, they

were horrified to think that I would even think about doing it. It

is hard for them. It is very hard for them. They fully understand

what their dad was like. They know what he was like before he was

taken ill. He was a total embarrassment! But, they are

totally behind us. You have the look of for wife who has lived the

life with someone, loved someone, been with them for your adult life,

in the course of this interview, I get a strong sense of a bond

between you and Tony. Yet, all four conversations on about how to end

his life. -- All of our conversation is about. For you, you

are in an impossible position. could be totally selfish and want

him to carry on living but that would be selfish. I have got to do

what he wants to do. I support him and I have to. If I did not support

him when he needed me to support him, just the practicalities of

that, I do support him and this is very hard but you're constantly

talking about how your husband is going to die. We have been living

with it for six years. It does become easier. The final thought,

you are living in a very personal way with this but you're also

dealing with the system, whether it is the legal system, politicians,

the health service, doctors, it is this, frankly, the moment, nobody

wants to offer you a fortune really want. -- doctors, people concerned

with ethics. Nobody wants to offer you what you want. Everything that

has happened with the legal case up until now has not been unexpected.

It is what we have been expecting all the time. It is what happens

from now do it is important. We knew that this would probably be

the outcome. They don't feel that we have a case. We knew that was

going to happen. It is the interesting but that comes from the

one. What that will be, I do not know yet. You have got the strength

to carry on with his caring. Yes, definitely. I think he quite enjoys

it in a way, don't you? Jane Nicklinson and Tony, as well, thank

you both for being on HARDtalk. As August turns into September,

there are no significant changes in the weather. We will have to wait

until Friday for those. For some others, the return of some sunshine.

If you are underneath blue-sky, it will feel warmer than it has done

recently. Here is a look at things for early risers. The most of the

sunshine will be across southern England and into Wales. As we run

along southern England this morning, don't necessarily expect clear blue

skies. There could be a few early showers and some cloud. Most places

will stay dry. A bit of mist and fog in some places. For north-west

England, it is looking rather cloudy for breakfast time. A lot of

cloud in Northern Ireland. Every now and again, a burst of sunshine

will fight its way through. 12 degrees in Belfast at this stage.

Despite some cloud in Scotland, much of the country stays dry. Some

breaks in the cloud in the east of the country. Some very light

breezes in the east of England. That is early on, for the rest of

the day, the best of the sunshine still in southern England and Wales.

Still cloudy skies but, for some, the sun will break through.

Temperatures in the low 20s in the south. A freshening breeze and the

far north-west should mean some outbreaks of rain for the Western

Isles. For the US Open, a dry end to the week after the drama of

Hurricane Irene to begin the week. We have got our own changes in the

weather going into Friday with high pressure moving away and a frontal

system coming in from the Atlantic. The fund will Beacon moving south

on Friday. -- the front will weaken. Another system will come in and

replace it. Cloud in patchy rain in Northern England and North Wales.

More persistent rain in Northern Ireland and Scotland later in the

day. It will be even warmer inEngland than it was today. For a