New Poster Boy For Assisted Suicide

Sean Davison, the NZ man who helped his mother kill herself, is back in South Africa after serving his slap-on-the-wrist sentence. Predictably, he’s now the poster boy for legalizing assisted sucide in South Africa.

Mercy for the merciful?

Sean Davison lived within the constraints of home detention at a friend's Kaikorai, Dunedin, home after assitsing in his mother's suicide. Picture: Craig Baxter
Forensic scientist Sean Davison arrives home in Cape Town on Wednesday to his partner and two young sons, with a criminal record and after five months of house arrest in New Zealand.

His crime? He crushed morphine tablets for his cancer-ridden mother in October 2006, and assisted her suicide. Then he told of it in a book, which started his prosecution.

A Dunedin court found he had acted out of love. But he had broken the law, and was given a suitably mild punishment: five months with a tracking device attached to his ankle. more