Former BBC reporter Ray Gosling, who admitted to helping his former lover die peacefully after battling AIDS, won’t be tried on any murder charges, but he is facing allegations of, ahem, wasting police time.
Because he lied, say police!
“He was interviewed several times by the police and detectives conducted an extensive investigation into the allegation,” said Helen Allen, senior lawyer with the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime Division. “The police established that there was sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of proving that Mr Gosling’s confession was false and asked the CPS to consider whether he should be prosecuted for wasting police time, given the amount of work they had to carry out to establish what had happened.” Allen said she had decided Gosling should face charges and he has been served with a summons to appear before Nottingham magistrates on September 14.
I’m not sure I fully understand the charges. He admitted — on television — to an assisted suicide, which you would think would mean he actually helped police investigate him. But now the cops have deemed his admission to be a waste of taxpayer resources? Is this the best they could come up with?
“I’m sorry if the police think they wasted their time,” says Gosling in response to the charges. “It was a small item on a regional TV programme, Inside Out, to my people, with whom I have had an intimate relationship. It got out of hand that winter evening. I had had a week or two talking to people who had told me of the pacts they had had – some fulfilled with wives, lovers, husbands, who were dying in pain and some told me of pacts unfulfilled. I did not expect it to cause this fuss, I’m not joining any cause. I know what some people say, that I said what I did for publicity to promote a book I’m writing. That is absolutely not true, I haven’t finished the book yet. Some people say I did it to revive a dying career. I didn’t. I said it out of my heart, out of my feeling for people who had told me their intimate private stories and it got out of hand and I’m sorry.”
How about we take this to the next level?
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The whole thing is preposterous.
adman
Just. Heartbreaking. Sorry, sorry sorry for your predicament, I haz a sad.
Baxter
This guy murdered someone. The police chose not to charge him with murder, but with a far lesser charge. And you’re complaining?
proetto
As I was reminded, it may be legal but it was ethical
Andy
@Baxter: The morality of the finest 5-year-old!
D Smith
@ Baxter
actually it was an assisted suicide… vastly different then murder, most state have a death with dignity clause on the law books, the police decided to waste their time investigating as if it were murder that is the issue