'Give whole lifers suicide option'

13 April 2012

An innocent man who was sentenced to die behind bars said today that other prisoners in his position - such as Harold Shipman - should be allowed to take their own lives.

Harry MacKenney, 72, said killers given "whole life" tariffs should be given the option of euthanasia by the State.

MacKenney, the only former "whole life" prisoner ever to be released, was set free by the Court of Appeal in December last year after protesting his innocence for 23 years and having four murder convictions quashed.

Until his release, he was one of just over 20 "whole lifers", including Shipman, who had been told by the Home Secretary they would die in jail.

MacKenney tells the next addition of ConVerse Monthly Prison News: "The 20-odd people who are in the position that I was in ought to be given a way out by the State instead of festering in prison year after year only to die a horrible death at the end of ripped bedsheets dangling from their cell bars."

He said that after four years in prison - about the same period Shipman had served - he seriously contemplated taking his own life.

He said: "I had reached such depths of absolute despair that I was prepared to sacrifice the whole of my future rather than spend one more day in prison but I did not have the courage to go through with it.

"If I had been given a handful of tablets or an injection I would definitely have taken my own life.

"Death is a fairer place than being locked away for life."

ConVerse editor Mark Leech, who supported Mr MacKenney's case for more than a decade, said: "As shocking as this call at first appears, it does deserve to be considered.

"Despite the horror of the offences committed by Harold Shipman and the total lack of humanity that he showed to his victims, we as a society ought to be able to rise above that and at least look at allowing these people a way out if that is what they want.

"At the end of the day, everyone has the right to take their own life as Shipman demonstrated at 6.20am yesterday morning.

"Doing it the way Shipman seems to have done has robbed his victims of justice.

"If we were to consider 'a way out', as Mr MacKenney calls it, there may be a way for all parties, including the family of victims, to be involved in it and bring closure to the devastation that has hit all their lives."

Mr MacKenney was jailed in 1980 at the Old Bailey for four murders.

His co-defendant Terry Pinfold, of Romford, Essex, was found guilty of procuring Mr MacKenney and Bruce Childs to murder teddy bear manufacturer and business associate Terence Eve.

Childs, who confessed to a series of gruesome murders, turned Queen's Evidence and was the chief prosecution witness against Pinfold and MacKenney.

The Court of Appeal was later told that Childs was a psychopathic liar whose evidence was totally unreliable and the convictions of MacKenney and Pinfold were quashed.

Mr MacKenney said: "I was told in 1980 that I would serve a minimum of 25 years but in 1996 the Home Secretary told me that I was being given a 'whole life' tariff and that I would die in prison.

"I was devastated by it. I could see that I had no future at all and only my steadfast belief in my innocence and my love for my partner Jill kept me going."

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