A bereaved father has revealed the heartbreaking contents of a voice bank left by his terminally ill wife before she died.
Motor Neurone Disease sufferer Helen Catmur, 57, recorded touching messages of love such as “sleep well” to her family after losing the power of speech, but also told one doctor: “I want to die.”
Husband James, 61, says replaying her suffering has made him determined to fight for a law change on assisted dying.
James, who is himself battling incurable Multiple Sclerosis, marks the fifth anniversary of his wife’s death this week.
He said: “Motor Neurone Disease is a horrible way to die – you end up trapped in your own body.
“I had to watch the woman I loved and adored go through hell and that is why I am campaigning now. If the law changed people would be able to decide the moment to go.
“I think that gives you peace.”
James travelled to London last month as a new assisted dying law received its second reading in the House of Lords.
Lawyer Helen, mum to Alasdair, 20, and Iona, 19, lost the power to walk and talk in just 16 months after diagnosis.
She used an app called Predictable to “speak” as synthetic version of her Scottish tones. It was only after she died that technical risk consultant James found a way to replay her voice bank on her iPad.
He heard recordings of her asking for help with medical needs including “my catheter is hurting” and day-to-day phrases like “go to bed” and “sleep well”.
But in a conversation at hospital on October 15, 2016, she told a consultant: “I want to die.”
She then went home to Great Gransden, Cambs, and died on November 2.
James plans to travel to Dignitas in Switzerland to die if his symptoms become unbearable.
On Tuesday we reported how poorly Dawn Voice-Cooper, 76, went to another Swiss clinic to die.
James is supporting Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for the terminally ill to be legally allowed to end their lives.
CEO Sarah Wootton said: “Cruel, outdated laws are failing terminally ill people like Helen and James. Compassion should not be a crime, but under the current law, it is.”
