 The couple were not thought to be terminally ill |
The sister of a British woman who died at a Swiss clinic after an apparent suicide pact with her husband has told of the family's disbelief at the couple's death. Robert and Jennifer Stokes are thought to have swallowed lethal doses of barbiturates at a flat run by voluntary euthanasia charity Dignitas.
Mr Stokes, 59, suffered from epilepsy and his 53-year-old wife from diabetes and back problems, but neither was thought to have been terminally ill.
Mrs Stokes' sister Dorothy Killackey told the BBC: "We are very surprised.
"Everything seems to have been arranged, the funeral and everything.
"It was obviously very well planned but we had no idea."
 They had things wrong with them but they were certainly not terminally ill  Mr and Mrs Stokes's relative |
Dignitas, which has helped about 150 people to end their lives, is at the centre of a row about "suicide tourism" to Switzerland. In January 74-year-old motor neurone disease sufferer Reginald Crew became the first Briton to publicly travel to the country to kill himself with the help of the group.
Happy lives
Ms Killackey told the Daily Mail members of the family had found paperwork about Dignitas at the couple's home.
"They had things wrong with them but they were certainly not terminally ill," she told the paper.
Mr and Mrs Stokes, from Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, travelled to Zurich at the end of March and died in a flat in the city on 1 April.
The decision to apparently help the couple die has angered some Swiss doctors.
Professor Oswald Oelz, of the Triemli Hospital in Zurich, said: "We don't know whether they got all the optimal palliative care but it is our experience that if these patients are treated properly they can live meaningful and more or less happy lives."
Uta Kaletsch, the manager of the retirement home where the couple lived, said: "It is unusual for residents not to let us know where they are going.
"The next thing we knew was that we were contacted by their solicitor to say they had died."
HAVE YOUR SAY You have lived your life and only you have made every major decision in it |
A Bedfordshire coroner has opened and adjourned inquests into the deaths of the couple, who are thought to have a daughter and a son.
Last week the wife of Reginald Crew learned she would not face charges over his death.
Merseyside Police launched an investigation into his death, looking at whether his wife Win broke the law by helping him to travel to the clinic.
But they decided there was "insufficient evidence" and "no public interest" in pursuing prosecutions.
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