The Argus - News, Sport, Brighton and Hove Albion and Entertainment for Brighton, Hove and Sussex

Let me die with dignity, says actor

From the archive, first published Saturday 20th Nov 2004.

An actor in agony with terminal cancer has vowed to hire a hitman to kill him if he is not allowed to die with dignity.

Peter Chesterfield, 50, of Lansdowne Street, Hove, has bladder cancer and just under two weeks ago was given between two and 12 weeks to live.

He lives in almost constant pain and fears his suffering will get worse despite taking powerful painkilling drugs.

He is bed-ridden and he cannot move his right leg and his screams of pain have caused the neighbours to complain.

He said: "My only way of guaranteeing a pain-free, clean death is to hire a hitman from the East End of London to take me into the woods and put a bullet through the back of my head.

"If the worst comes to the worst and the pain gets too bad and if I realise no one is going to come forward to help me that is what I intend to do."

Mr Chesterfield, who had minor parts in numerous television shows including Eastenders, Only Fools And Horses and Casualty, was diagnosed in March as he recovered from 12 years with chronic fatigue illness ME.

He underwent two operations but was told earlier this month doctors had not been able to save him.

He got in touch with the Voluntary Euthanasia Society but was told the law prevented it from helping people to die.

He said: "At the possibility of facing an agonising death I didn't want to spend my last days in fear, panic and pain. I can't take it. I want some kind soul to step forward and volunteer to help me."

He said before he died he wanted to help bring about a change in the law.

He said: "If I was in Holland or Switzerland I would have been asked if I would like an assisted suicide and I would have said yes and that would be that. But I am physically too ill to travel so I cannot go abroad. It is not fair this Government should say to me, ëYou are going to die in excruciating agony in an appalling state of degradation but we will charge anyone who tries to help you with murder'."

Mr Chesterfield first realised something was wrong just after his 50th birthday in March. He had just moved to Brighton and Hove after splitting from his 18-year-old Hungarian girlfriend, Talisa.

Tests revealed the cancer in his bladder. Operations on his tumours could do nothing to halt the spread of cancer and two weeks ago doctors found it his lungs, abdomen and kidneys.

He said: "I am going to spend whatever time I've got left to fight for the right for people to choose to die according to their own dictate.

"My nurses and doctors said they would put me out of my misery in a dignified way of they were permitted to.

"I will even die on camera if I have to."

Under UK law anyone assisting someone to kill themselves could be charged with murder and be jailed.

Deborah Annetts, the head of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, said: "We support Peter's wish to be able to have a gentle death, free from pain and fear. It is unacceptable the law should condemn him to begging somebody to help him to achieve this in the teeth of prosecution."

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