A daughter who allowed her stroke-stricken mother to die ‘with dignity’ in Dignitas, Switzerland, told how the police knocked on her door the day after she returned home.
Mandy Appleyard’s mother, 83-year-old Janet Mary Appleyard, traveled to Switzerland with her two daughters in February 2021, where she took a drink to end her life.
Just under two years earlier, in May 2019, Janet suffered a life-altering stroke that left her unable to move, speak properly or go to the toilet on her own.
Writhing in fear and pain, she reportedly told her daughters, “A stroke should have killed me. Every night I go to bed and try to die.
‘I want to die. Help me. Please.’
The maximum penalty in the UK for assisted suicide is 14 years in prison.
Mandy Appleyard (left) has told how police came knocking on her door after her stroke-stricken mother Janet Mary Appleyard (right) traveled to Switzerland to “die with dignity” through assisted suicide. Pictured: The couple before Janet’s stroke
In a first-person piece in The Times, Mandy, pictured, explained how her mother suffered a life-changing stroke that left her unable to move, speak properly or go to the toilet on her own.
In an exclusive first-person piece for The timesdaughter Mandy, a journalist, explained how her mother was a fit and healthy 81-year-old prior to the stroke that left her severely disabled.
Janet had talked to her daughter about assisted suicide after watching Terry Pratchett’s documentary about Dignitas, the non-profit assisted suicide organization whose principle is “Live with Dignity — Die with Dignity.”
“If something terrible happens to me, I want to go there,” Janet is said to have told her daughter more than once.
Two days after her stroke, Mandy explained how Janet “pretended to slit her throat and fire a gun at her head” to tell her daughters she wanted to die.
Mandy and her sister urged their mother to wait and tried to shed a positive light on the tragedy, but Janet remained adamant that she wanted to die “with dignity.”
After three months confined to a hospital bed, Janet went home to East Yorkshire, where she also stayed with Mandy near York and lived in a care home for two months. She was assisted by a team of carers, physiotherapists, speech therapists, a psychiatrist and a psychologist.
Toilet visits lasted 15 minutes, according to Mandy, and “this left her so exhausted that she had to sleep for an hour afterwards.”
The mother’s speech was also severely affected after the stroke affected her control over her mouth and throat muscles.
Janet is pictured with her two daughters. After the stroke, Janet reportedly told her family, “A stroke should have killed me. Every night I go to bed and try to die’
“Her real tragedy was that she was as intelligent and perceptive as ever, but was unable to express herself effectively,” Mandy wrote in The Times.
“On days when she was tired, it was hard to understand everything she said and she became speech-strapped and tearful.”
Janet reportedly begged her daughters to suffocate her with a pillow, even wondering if she had slashed her wrists in bed with a knife.
Unable to move, according to her daughter, she was afraid of burglars and fire, and one night her air mattress deflated, trapping her in a metal bed frame.
Janet told her daughters she wanted to go to Switzerland and said, “Sorry. Don’t want to leave you, but can’t live like this,” said Mandy. ‘Can not walk. Can not talk. A hand. A leg. Not good.’
Her daughters bought a mobility van to try and take her outside, but Janet was too scared to leave the house.
Termination of life by assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, but assisted suicide is a crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland that carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years. As a result, several psychiatrists and psychologists in the UK refused to support Janet’s application to Dignitas, Mandy wrote.
Meanwhile, a Humberside police officer and a social worker arrived at Janet’s house one day when Mandy’s sister was tending to her, asked if Janet was planning to go to Dignitas, and used the word “murder” against her daughter.
After finally getting approval from a psychiatrist, the family’s plans were then put on hold for a long period of time due to a number of factors, including restrictions due to the Covid pandemic and travel waivers from the Swiss government.
Janet’s Dignitas bill was £8,380, which covered assisted suicide, doctor visits and prescription costs, administration costs by the Swiss authorities and cremation in Switzerland.
In addition, the flight to Zurich cost £10,500, all of which Janet paid for with her savings.
Due to Covid restrictions, Janet said goodbye to her sisters during a tearful Facetime call, according to Mandy, but “smiled a lot” on the plane to Switzerland.
A Swiss doctor arrived at the trio’s apartment to ask Janet why she wanted to die and if she was likely to change her mind, among several other questions.
The next day around 10am Janet said she was ready. “My sister and I put her on the bed and let her settle in as we sat on either side of her and took her hands in ours,” Mandy wrote.
After drinking a drug to prevent her from vomiting, handed to her by an aide, Janet said she was ready for the fatal drink — “a barbiturate that causes coma and then death,” Mandy wrote.
“Brave and beautiful to the end, her eyes closed and within seconds she fell unconscious,” the daughter wrote.
Both daughters kissed their mother on the cheek, cut off a lock of their mother’s hair and packed their things to go home, which Mandy says felt “wrong” given their mother’s passing.
They flew home on Saturday, with a police officer banging urgently and announcing himself on the other side of the door the next day.
“When we spoke the next day, police said they should question me carefully after a call from a third party who reported a ‘possible security issue,'” Mandy wrote.
Nearly two years later, Mandy remained under criminal investigation, with police requesting access to her and her mother’s bank accounts. They also took testimonials from a friend, family and a caregiver.
Meanwhile, they asked Dignitas for information about their mother’s case and asked for the video of her speaking about her decision to die.
Mandy and her sister spent “thousands” on a lawyer who “promised a lot but delivered nothing” until they finally replaced him with one who worked on the case for free.
On December 16 last year, Mandy’s solicitor sent her an email from Humberside Police, reportedly stating: ‘I can confirm that… the CPS… decide not to take any further action. It is not in the public interest to prosecute (sic) this matter.”
“I was in tears, unspeakably relieved by this decision,” Mandy wrote.
For help, call free Samaritans on 116 123 or visit samaritans.org.
