Mum dies days after making utterly heartbreaking deathbed confession
'She was peaceful, pain free, at home and surrounded by her loving family.'
A mum who admitted to killing her terminally-ill son just days ago has died, her family has announced.
Antonya Cooper, 77, from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, died over the weekend from incurable breast, pancreatic and liver cancer.
Her son Hamish was five when he was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma – a rare childhood cancer – and died on December 1, 1981 aged seven.
Antonya’s daughter Tabitha said in a statement to the BBC: ‘She was peaceful, pain free, at home and surrounded by her loving family.
‘It was exactly the way she wanted it. She lived life on her terms and she died on her terms.’
Thames Valley Police visited the family after making some initial enquiries.
Antonya previously told the BBC that she had made the decision to end her son’s life by giving him a fatally large dose because he was in a ‘lot of pain’.
Police said it was ‘aware of reports relating to an apparent case of assisted dying of a seven-year-old boy in 1981’.
It added: ‘At this early stage, the force is making inquiries into these reports and is not in a position to comment further while these investigations continue.’
Antonya talked about her final moments with her son in May and said: ‘In the middle of the night, we were by his bedside.
‘He was expressing that he had pain and I said, “Would you like me to take the pain away?”
‘He said, “Yes please, Mama”, and so I gave him a dose of morphine sulphate through his Hickman catheter.
‘We had watched him brave through all that beastly treatment, we had him for longer than the original prognosis, so the time was right.’
Deliberately ending a person’s life by euthanasia to relieve suffering is illegal in England.
Antonya had made calls on the government to change its stance on assisted dying and had joined the assisted dying clinic in Switzerland called Dignitas.
The current law means that somebody can be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter.
She was asked if she understood whether she might be prosecuted for these charges and she said: ‘Yes’.
She said: ‘If they come 43 years after I have allowed Hamish to die peacefully, then I would have to face the consequences. But they would have to be quick, because I’m dying too.’
Calls for changes to the law around assisted dying have grown more significant in recent times and changes are being considered in places like Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man.
Famous faces like Dame Esther Rantzen – who has stage 4 lung cancer – said she had joined Dignitas in December and has called for a free vote on assisted dying in Parliament.
But critics say legalisation would put pressure on vulnerable people to end their own lives through a fear they are a burden to society.
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