Mother jailed for life for killing disabled son with heroin

On Wednesday, a court in the United Kingdom convicted a 57-year-old woman of murder. The woman ended the life of her 22-year-old brain damaged son with a heroin overdose.

Family members sitting in the public gallery shouted "shame on you" as a jury at the Old Bailey, the U.K.'s Central Criminal Court, convicted 57-year-old Frances Inglis of murder. Inglis, who was originally from east London, murdered her 22-year-old son Thomas in November 2008 by injecting him with heroin and after a failed murder attempt in September 2007, according to the Daily Mail. The Guardian indicates the verdict was not unanimous; it was reached by a majority of 10-2 vote after more than six hours of deliberating. Mrs. Inglis, a trainee nurse and mother of three sons, was jailed for life. Judge Brian Barker ruled she must serve a minimum of nine years in jail. When she took the witness stand, Mrs. Inglis told the court about the reasons she killed her son as he lay in bed in a nursing home in Sawbridgeworth, a small town just north of London. She said he was unable to speak and was receiving food through a tube in to his stomach. She said he was in need of round-the-clock care. She said:

I don't see it as killing or murder. The definition of murder is to take someone's life with malice in your heart. I did it with love in my heart, for Tom, so I don't see it as murder. I knew what I was doing was against the law. I don't know what name they would call it but I knew that the law would say it was wrong. I believed it would have been Tom's choice to have been allowed to die rather than have the intervention to keep him alive

Announcing Mrs Inglis' sentence, Judge Barker rejected her "mercy killing" defense, explaining:

You cannot take the law into your own hands and you cannot take away life, however compelling you think the reason. We can all understand the emotion and the unhappiness that you were experiencing. The fact is that you knew that you intended to do a terrible thing. You knew you were breaking society's conventions, you knew you were breaking the law, and you knew the consequences

The senior police officer involved in the case also dismissed the notion of a "mercy killing," while Sky News quotes prosecuting counsel, Miranda Moore QC, as saying:

It would be a hard-hearted person who didn't have sympathy for her position. It is a tragic case but it is not a defence to murder to end someone's life to put them out of their misery

After becoming involved in a fight close to his home in east London in July 2007, Thomas Inglis was put into an ambulance to be taken to hospital, reportedly against his wishes. Thomas fell from the ambulance as it was moving, in the process hitting his head on the road. Surgery saved his life but left him in a permanent/persistent vegetative state. The Daily Mail, however, reports Thomas had not officially been "classified as such." Sky News observes that a senior doctor told Mrs Inglis Thomas "might one day be well enough to run his own business." Frustrated with the legal channels she and her family would have to pursue to have her son's food and water withdrawn, Mrs Inglis used the Internet to research a drug that could be used to cause an overdose while at the same time be relatively painless. After researching, she reportedly acquired sufficient heroin to kill Thomas and stole syringes from a hospital, presumably the one where she was training. Alex Inglis, 26 and Mrs Inglis' oldest son, criticized the decision to prosecute and convict his mother, telling those gathered outside the Old Bailey:

I want to say that all of the family and Tom's girlfriend support my mum 100%. All those who loved and were close to Tom have never seen this as murder, but as a loving and courageous act.

What this case and a number of others have exposed is a need for a complete rethink of existing laws in regard to people that have been, and will be, in the same position as Tom. How can it be legal to withhold food and water, which means a slow and painful death, yet illegal to end all suffering in a quick, calm and loving way? It's cruel, inhumane and illogical. The law simply isn't keeping pace with modern medicine and aggressive surgery, which is wrong, as it leaves too many people in such tragic and painful existences. We have a duty of care to them and we should not allow this situation to continue. It should not be left to a wife, husband, mother, father, sister or brother to have to end their suffering, and be convicted for murder