An Aids sufferer from Manchester has delivered a petition to Downing Street campaigning for him and others to have the right to die.

Steven Barksby, 51, joined Diane Pretty's husband Brian in handing in the document, signed by around 50,000 campaigners.

Mr Barksby, a former legal accountant who is now unemployed, said he wanted the choice of being allowed to commit assisted suicide.

Mr Pretty, whose late wife failed to win the right to be helped to die, is continuing her campaign for a change in the law.

Dianne Pretty died without winning her legal battle for the right to die

Mr Barksby said: "I want to have the choice of when to die.

"If my doctor says the pills are no longer working and there is no more medication in the pipeline and it is time to put my house in order, then rather than suffering a decline and all the indignities that go with it, I would like to be able to choose the time and place when I could be helped to go."

The petition was accompanied by a personal letter from Mr Pretty to Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling for a change in the law.

Mrs Pretty, 43, a mother of two from Luton who had motor neurone disease, died in May this year.

The couple, backed by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society and the civil rights group Liberty, had taken their campaign to the European Court of Human Rights, after being defeated in the UK courts.

Mr Pretty risked prosecution if he defied the courts and helped his wife die.

"Courageous battle"

He now leads a nationwide campaign - Act Now - calling for the terminally ill to be able to choose to have medical assistance to die.

North West Liberal Democrat Euro-MP Chris Davies, who supported Mrs Pretty in her legal fight, said her life should be commemorated with an Act of Parliament allowing assisted suicide.

Mr Davies said: "Diane Pretty's courageous battle has highlighted the need for a long overdue reform of the law.

"People in her situation should have the right to choose for themselves to die with dignity and without suffering."

But Rachel Hurst, director of Disability Awareness in Action, said it would be "very wrong for justice to say in certain circumstances people can die".

"It would be a slippery slope and many people who did not want to die could be affected," she said.