A woman who walked free from Court after admitting she helped her mother to die has joined a campaign to fight for legalised euthanasia, the Telegraph & Argus can reveal today.

Gillian Jennison, 52, who was put on a year's probation at Leeds Crown Court yesterday after a murder charge was dropped, is a member of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society.

The VES, which has 20,000 members, hopes Jennison's case will highlight the need for a review of the law surrounding mercy killing cases.

After the T&A revealed yesterday that Jennison had walked free after pleading guilty to a lesser charge of aiding and abetting suicide or procuring the suicide of her mother Annie Wilks, the VES said it welcomed the sentence but called for a change in the law.

Jennison's daughter Tjarda Jennison spoke of the family's relief and said her mother was backing a call for a change in law.

Jennison, a lecturer, of Alma Terrace, East Morton, Bingley, helped her mother to die last July. Annie, 83, of Marchcote Lane, Cottingley, was confused, ill and desperately wanted to die.

She drank sherry and took a quantity of sleeping tablets supplied by her daughter who gently placed a pillow over her face.

The judge, Mr Justice Smith, said he accepted there was no "ulterior motive".

After the case, John Oliver, general secretary of VES, said: "Mrs Jennison is a compassionate, caring daughter whose only crime was to help her mother carry out her wishes. We welcome the leniency of the judge in her sentencing.

"However, this tragic case only serves to highlight the need for a change in the law to allow a competent, terminally ill adult to receive medical help to die at their own considered request. I have met her and she is a charming woman and I am sure she did this for the best of motives."

Mr Oliver said it was disgraceful that Jennison should have to wait almost a year with a murder charge hanging over her. It was only last week that the charge was reduced to one of aiding, abetting and procuring another's suicide.

He added: "The poor woman has had to face it hanging over her for quite a long time. If they had gone through with this she would have been treated like the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. That can't be right.

"Mercifully the charge was dropped but we want MPs to address this very seriously. This case should herald a change in the law. We want to see these kinds of decisions put in the hands of doctors - it's time for an end to all this cloak and dagger stuff."

In a media interview Jennison said: "People who help others to die for the best compassionate and loving reasons are not murderers.

"I think my case was just one small part of something that is an issue that has to be tackled. Although I broke the law I feel that I could do nothing else but comply with my mum's wishes.

"She was an extremely independent person - a very brave, self-reliant person and on the day she died she had finally learned she would not recover. She said: 'I just want to die - please give me the pills'.

"I said: 'You will have to take them yourself' . . . we cuddled and talked until my mum went to sleep. I got a pillow and held it very gently and if my mum had struggled or stirred I wouldn't have continued. But she didn't and I took it away and she had stopped breathing."

Speaking at her mother's home, daughter Tjarda said: "I am just very pleased and very relieved. It is what she deserves. She didn't deserve to be tried for murder."

She confirmed that her mother, a member of the 20,000 strong VES, backed the campaign for a change in the law saying: "Yes, at this stage."

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