Ray Gosling's Strange Confession: Assisted Dying or Murder?

Ray Gosling is an English journalist, author, broadcaster and gay rights activist. Now he is also a self-confessed murderer in police custody, but the police don't quite know what to do with him. On February 15, 2009, Mr. Gosling appeared on Inside Out on the BCC and stated, as he walked through a graveyard, that he smothered a former lover who was dying of AIDS. He gave out a few details about how the incident actually occurred, saying that he asked the doctor to leave him alone with the patient "just a bit," and when the doctor was gone, Mr. Gosling said: "I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead."

The next day, detectives from Nottinghamshire's homicide division investigated the matter. Then on February 17, Mr. Gosling was taken into police custody. The police have little information other than the information provided by the 70-year-old mercy killer. Mr. Gosling's account establishes the 1980s as the time period when this occurred. After the broadcast, however, he asserted that he would disclose no further information, even if he was "tortured." He said he and the dead man had made a private agreement. This "pact" involving taking fatal measures in the event either of them was dying in extreme pain. "It's nobody's business ... I don't regret it," Ray Gosling said.

Well, he's wrong about that. You can't just admit to ending someone's life on television, and then tell people to mind their own business, particularly if those people are policemen. An even weirder thing about this situation is that the program was screened and cleared by legal and editorial standards departments before it was broadcast.

Mr. Gosling said he had chosen to reveal his secret after listening to the candid stories told to him by his interview subjects for the Inside Out program, which is a documentary series focusing on local stories around the UK. He also said that he believed many people have done what he did: "Sometimes doctors do it on their own. Sometimes people do it on their own ... sometimes you have to do brave things and you have to say - to use Nottingham language - bugger the law," he said.

The program was a local broadcast, and was initially seen by some 98,000 people in the viewing area around Mr. Gosling's Nottingham home. As soon as it got out, however, it was more fuel for the fire in the already ongoing assisted dying debate in Great Britain. A spokesman for Care Not Killing, a group against euthanasia, felt that the BBC was "highly irresponsible" in not referring the case to the police and accused them of knowing about it for over two months. The Dignity in Dying group, which campaigns for liberalization and change in the euthanasia laws, believes Mr. Gosling is just one of many people living with the same secret.

It surely is a highly emotionally charged issue. No one wants to see a loved one suffer but I don't know if it is a brave and courageous act. I don't know if it is a matter of saying - to use American vernacular - screw the law. If someone I loved wanted to make an agreement like this, it just couldn't be me because I don't think I could handle that particular assignment.

Early indications are that the confession by itself may not be enough to prosecute Mr. Gosling, and then of course, since he is 70 years old, there are going to be many people who do not want to see him go to jail. The other side of the coin presents a whole ton of problems. If he is not prosecuted, will a lot of people then feel it is okay to come forward and reveal a secret assisted suicide, and how will anyone know whether it is real or imaginary? Mr. Gosling's may be rethinking the wisdom of his confession some time very soon.

Independent (UK), Ray Gosling, Confessions of a Mercy Killer, 10 Feb 17
BBC News, Murder Arrest Over Ray Gosling's BBC Confession, 10 Feb 17