"My name is Tony Nicklinson and this is my house, but it is also my prison." "Seven years ago, I had a major stroke." "It left my body completely paralysed, but my mind unharmed." "I can only communicate by computer that follows my eye movements." "That is how I am talking to you now." "I have what is known as locked-in syndrome." "There is no cure." "I want to commit suicide, but I am so severely disabled, I can't." "I need someone else to kill me." "If they did, they could be charged with murder." "That is why my family and I are going to court tomorrow - to fight for the right to die." "ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS" "When Tony Nicklinson married his wife Jane more than 25 years ago, he was a fit and healthy civil engineer." "Open your pants!" "No, that's for later." "Tony regularly travelled for work and settled in Dubai, where he and Jane began a family." "The 6'4" father of two was a keen rugby player and loved extreme sports." "Tony was the life and soul of the party, he was very outgoing, always had an answer for everything." "He always thought he was right and usually he was, which was really annoying." "But yeah, he was a great character." "He was really fun and loud and he's a massive show-off." "They used to like silly rugby games as well, like sing rude rugby songs and they used to go bar sliding..." "That's the sort of person he is - a bit of a wally, to be honest." "Everyone loved him, because he wasn't one to shy away, so everyone knew about him - he made sure of that." "Yes, I can't stress like, how big a character he actually was, he was absolutely brilliant." "He had a huge impact on a lot of people's lives, in a good way." "In 2005, Tony travelled to Athens on a business trip." "When he got to his hotel, he developed a blinding headache and lost consciousness." "He was rushed to hospital." "The phone rang and I was told that a foreigner, 51 years old, had a stroke." "He was completely conscious, but he wasn't able to move anything, except his eyes." "He could only open and close his eyes and move them up and down - that was all." "This is a stroke called locked-in syndrome." "Well, it was the first for me to see." "And I think it was... ..something really bad." "Life as we knew it was over." "We would have to get him home, we would have to pack up our life back in Dubai and for a long time, I mean, I would say for well over a year, I used to wake up in the mornings, and it was..." "For a split second, it was like I'd had a bad dream and it wasn't real and everything was back to normal." "Then, you sort of gather your thoughts and realise no, it wasn't, it was the real thing." "Where once Tony travelled the world, life is now confined to a single room at his home in Wiltshire." "He is paralysed from the neck down and can barely control the movement of his head." "But his mind functions just as it did before." "His wife Jane, who used to be a nurse, is now his full-time carer." "When he's eating, you see I'm constantly wiping his lips and everything, and it's not keep him looking clean, it's because when you put stuff in his mouth, if you didn't do anything, it would just sit there." "He needs something to get him going." "There's lots of little tricks you can do, but one is wiping his lips." "(COUGHS)" "Um, if that doesn't work, you can put the spoon in his mouth and press it on his tongue - that'll work." "(CHOKES)" "He quite often almost chokes." "He's actually been really good tonight." "He always gets a lot of wind when he eats, because he gulps, so I release it with his peg." "AIR RATTLES THROUGH TUBE" "Tony's stroke also left him unable to speak." "He communicates through a computer that tracks his eye movements using infrared cameras." "He selects letters and words by looking at them and then blinking." "I find it immensely frustrating that I write so slowly." "What do you miss the most about being a husband and about being a dad?" "I miss the most not being able to hug my wife and kids." "Also I will miss not being able to hold my grandchildren." "You obviously love Jane and your family a lot, but still want to die." "The mental anguish I suffer every day by knowing that I don't have a way out far outweighs the little amount of pleasure there is in my life." "No-one wants their dad to die, obviously, but..." "Dad said point-blank, this is what he wants - he's tried to live life the way he is now and he doesn't like it." "We knew that this is the decision he'd make." "We always knew." "My dad is of sound mind, he knows what he wants." "He's thought about this for..." "I don't know how many years." "I don't think that life should be forced upon people if they don't want it." "There are people out there, some in worse condition than him - that have a full and meaningful life, which is great for them, absolutely wonderful for them, but it's not for Tony." "It's an individual choice." "It's the kind of person that he is." "Life's just not worth living for him." "Here?" "(GROANS)" "Because Tony is so severely disabled, he is unable to take his own life." "He would need someone else to do it for him, but that's against the law." "We're actually asking for someone to be allowed to end his life and it's never been done before." "It's not assisted suicide." "It is, in effect murder, really, so we're asking for - in circumstances like this - for murder to be legal." "Tomorrow, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, the Nicklinsons' request will be considered by three High Court judges." "This is the first right-to-die hearing of its kind." "Previous cases have helped clarify the law on assisted suicide." "But Tony's case goes further." "It's also a fundamental challenge to the law on murder." "Nobody has brought this sort of case before the courts before." "The judge at first instance described it as a case which would involve crossing the Rubicon and it would involve setting a major legal precedent." "Tony would like to be able to die at a moment of his own choosing in a dignified way, with his family around him." "But he needs help from, preferably, a doctor." "However, that doctor would be liable to a charge of murder, so Tony is putting forward the argument that a doctor who helps him in those circumstances should have a defence of necessity available to him." "Tony wants the court to agree that it is necessary for a doctor to kill him, because the alternative - forcing him to stay alive - would be worse." "The government is asking for Nicklinsons' plea to be thrown out." "They say a decision about such a controversial issue should not be taken by the courts, but by Parliament." "Start again." "We'll start again." "How do you think you'll feel if you don't win the court case?" "The hearing is my only chance for a pain-free death." "The alternative is starvation, and that would probably be my next move, but because it will involve some discomfort," "I will have to think about it very carefully." "But you would consider it?" "Yes, because I am not given any choice." "What will you do if you win?" "Probably go sometime in 2014." "Why 2014?" "Because I think I can tolerate my life until then but if I find that I cannot, I will go sooner." "Earlier this year, for the first time, an independent commission on assisted dying concluded that certain people should be helped to die." "But this was no use to Tony." "The report stressed that the individual who wished to die had to be terminally ill and able to take the final fatal step themselves." "The former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, chaired the commission." "Do you support Tony's case?" "I don't, because ultimately the way that Tony puts his case is to say he wants somebody to kill him." "Ultimately, my view is, and it was also the view of the Commission On Assisted Dying, there needs to be a line drawn and the line has to be drawn subject to other safeguards in people taking their own lives rather than somebody killing them." "And that is the big split between the views I've expressed and the views that Tony has." "Does Lord Falconer support your case?" "No." "Do you think you could change his mind?" "Yes." "Hello, Tony." "How are you?" "Nice to see you again." "Welcome." "It's good to see you again." "Thank you for coming." "Lord Falconer, I was really disappointed with your report." "In Britain, everybody is legally allowed to commit suicide, but I'm denied the right, only because I am so severely disabled." "How do you defend this discrimination against me?" "I don't think it's discrimination in the strict sense, because what the law was saying is," ""We're not going to interfere if people want to kill themselves."" "That's an entirely private matter." "But for everybody, the law is the same - they can't kill somebody else." "So it depends which side of the telescope you're looking at it from, in a way." "I appreciate that we are looking at it from slightly different ends of a rather different telescope." "I can't move." "I can't talk." "I am in constant mental anguish, yet you would have me live like this for another 20 or 30 years." "Be..." "How would you feel if it was you, with no possibility of a way out?" "Well, I..." "The force of that argument is very, very, very strong." "And I know this will not sound like an answer that deals with your case but in determining how the law should be, we do," "I think, have to look at how it would apply to everybody." "If there were people who might be persuaded to kill themselves or be killed, then ultimately protecting them is an important aspect that the law's got to deal with." "And that's why I'm saying I think we shouldn't cross the line which says that people can kill other people and it not be murder." "I can't live like this." "What would you suggest I do?" "Er..." "I..." "I..." "I don't have any suggestions in relation to what you can do and I'm deeply, deeply sympathetic to your position." "The only suggestion I can make, having had this discussion, you might like to think about becoming a member of the English Bar because you put the case more effectively than anybody else does and you put the case effectively" "because people should be confronted with what it means in practice by having a face-to-face conversation with you, Tony." "Because you've been incredibly impressive with me." "Because you've been incredibly impressive with me." "Thank you." "We still agree to disagree." "Thank you." "And I'm quite sure we'll be discussing this again." "Very, very nice to see you." "Bye-bye." "The Netherlands is one of the few countries in the world where doctors are legally allowed to help people die." "The change in law there came about not through Parliament but through setting gradual legal precedents, as Tony is trying to do." "I'm glad that I'm living in the Netherlands where we have the possibility to do that, where it is legal to do that, under conditions." "And I think the countries around the Netherlands where it is not allowed, for it is not only Britain " "Germany, France, it's always the same, it is not allowed " "I think they do a bad thing to their citizens." "Dr van Hasselt has helped several people end their lives and is providing evidence to the Nicklinsons' hearing." "The procedure is that you give the patient, by injection, a drug, in which he is in a deep coma." "Then you give a drug which paralyses his whole body so he can't breathe any more and he will suffocate." "Of course, you will not... that patient will be aware that he is choking." "That's why the coma has to be very, very deep." "Dutch doctors now help more than 3,000 people a year to die." "But they have to follow strict criteria." "The first one, very important, is that the request must be on free will." "There must be unbearable suffering without any prospect of improvement and that there is no alternative to end the suffering than ending the life." "You've got to face up to the fact that if we do win, Dad dies, if we don't win, he lives, and... each are actually equally as horrific as the other." "It's a no-win situation, really, whatever happens." "It;" "It's like abortion." "It;" "When that all happened, everyone was up in arms about it, lt; but now it's just commonplace, isn't it?" "I mean, there are still those that are against it and there always will be but... just have to wait and see what happens." "Kevin Fitzpatrick is a disability rights campaigner for the anti-euthanasia pressure group Not Dead Yet UK." "Put yourself there, cos Tony..." "Put yourself there, cos Tony..." "Course I can, yeah." "I can do that, certainly." "Mr Nicklinson, Tony..." "Is it all right to call you Tony?" "Yeah." "I represent the views of a lot of disabled people who are very, very afraid that if you get what you want, it will open a radical change in the way that people think about killing other people." "It will change how people view the value of the lives of people like myself and yourself, and more and more and more people will be open to attack." "It won't make any difference unless you need help to die." "If the law is voluntary, what is there to worry about?" "What they've got at the minute is protection." "What they will have the minute the law is changed is all that protection taken away from them." "If the lessons of history teach us anything, it's when people actually develop a society where other people judge some lives are not worth living." "That's the Rubicon, that's the difficult bit that will be crossed - some people will be empowered to say of some other people," ""You should not stay alive."" "The choices you and people like you give me is to live an increasingly miserable life until I die of natural causes, starve myself to death or ask the court for a pain-free death by getting somebody else to kill me." "Now, imagine that it is you who I have just described." "What would you do?" "Were I to be in your situation," "I don't actually know how I would react." "I might say that watching my kids and maybe staying around long enough to enjoy the sight of them having their own children would be sufficient." "What happens if, like me, at 17, you go from being six foot four to four foot six overnight, what do you do?" "What do you think about?" "But then the question is... whether or not, when you get past that, the next day is different." "Maybe the sun is shining, maybe the kids are coming, maybe there's something else that moves on and distracts you." "OK, but people like you are condemning me to a slow and painful death and I will do all in my power to make it different." "I'm not condemning you at all." "I am not responsible for the fact that you had a stroke." "Let me ask you a counter question." "If, as a result of your campaigning to change the law, another person dies who shouldn't have died, you're responsible for that death, is that true?" "What you say is ridiculous and I wish I could speak, so that I could respond properly." "I think that's a little unfair, Tony." "I'm sorry that you find it ridiculous, because I don't." "These fears are real, they're genuine, and it's a pity to be dismissed as ridiculous." "'People fear that if we got the murder laws changed,' all of a sudden, anyone with a slight disability could walk into a doctor's surgery, ask for a lethal injection and be done with it." "Absolutely not true." "'I mean, that's just ridiculous.'" "This would only be for people that are so physically disabled that they cannot do it themselves and they cannot even do it with help." "It won't just be a case of saying, "Right, I want to die," ""come and give me a lethal dose of something,"" "there will be a long process to go through to get approval from the courts for it to be done." "Alec Hutchins is providing evidence at the Nicklinson hearing." "He is giving personal testimony, based on his experience with his daughter, Carol, who had advanced multiple sclerosis." "I think this...this is the very spot where she pulled her wheelchair in close up against this rail, raised the chair to its highest position, raised the arm, undid the lap strap and rolled over into this Kennet and Avon canal." "This is only the second time I've been here." "And I just... just trying to get used to the fact that this is where she ended it all." "Had assisted suicide been an option, it definitely would have been a more dignified way to go than throwing yourself into this river." "I understand that your daughter suffered unnecessarily, but if the law was different, she would have had a better death?" "That's right, Tony." "She would." "She could have planned all her financial side of it." "She could have said goodbye to her friends, she could have said goodbye to her family, we could have been there with her." "It would still have been hard for the family to say goodbye to her, but the alternative that she chose, to throw herself into the canal... ..that's a horrendous way to die." "I don't know how she found the courage to do that." "But she did." "Do you think my circumstances justifying somebody else killing me?" "Yes, I think probably you could justify somebody else killing you... ..if you can't do it yourself." "But that's going to take a big change in the law to do that." "If we fail, Tony's only option, really, is to starve himself." "God." "But it takes a long time to do that." "And it wouldn't be pleasant." "It;" "I know, I know." "You don't know my care arrangements, but in general, do you think that better care and more of it is the answer?" "No." "Tony, I think you're receiving the maximum care that you can have." "I can't imagine anybody could be more caring than your wife." "Sorry." "Pleased to meet you." "I really do hope you're successful." "Bye." "Tomorrow, Tony and his family will finally have their case heard in the High Court." "Three judges will decide whether someone can kill Tony without being charged with murder." "If they agree, it will set a landmark precedent that could start Britain on the road to legalised voluntary euthanasia." "While the Nicklinsons await the judgement, they've had some words of support from the Greek doctor who saved Tony's life seven years ago." "Death is more normal than to stay alive in this condition." "So when I was informed that he was still alive," "I was surprised and... sad also, because I... ..well, I wouldn't..." "..I wouldn't like, even for my worst enemy, to stay alive in this condition for so many years." "I think that we owe him." "He is paying for our mistakes, in a way." "We have not done medical mistakes, but... it is a mistake that he survived." "When it does happen, it will be horrible but then we've been thinking about it for so long now, to an extent, I've already lost him." "I think it will be worse if we don't get this and we've all got to accept the fact that he's got 30 years of a really horrible life ahead of him, locked in." "I hope he gets the outcome that he wants." "Not for my sake or anyone else's, but for his." "He might not even want to use it, in the end." "He just wants the choice." "But I definitely do hope that he gets the outcome that we're fighting for." "It's the Nicklinsons against the world, I'll tell you." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd"