⇒ Suicide pact is a defence only to murder.

⇒ Section 4 of the Homicide Act 1957 provides that if the defendant kills another in pursuance of a suicide pact he or she is guilty of manslaughter, not murder.

⇒ An example of a suicide pact is where a husband and wife agree that they will die together. The plan is that the husband will shoot his wife and then turn the gun on himself. He kills his wife but someone stops the husband killing himself, or he loses his nerve.

⇒ The Law commission has recommended the abolition of this defence to murder (Law Commission Paper No 177).

⇒ Mercy killings and euthanasia are widely used terms to describe situations where the defendant kills a person who is suffering from a terminal illness.

⇒ The law is clear here: there is no defence of mercy killing in criminal law. It is murder to do an act which significantly shortens a person’s life, even if that person is in agony and asks to be killed. See, for example, the case of R v Inglis [2011].