The Swiss authorities are considering a ban on “suicide tourism,” after a Briton with advanced motor neurone disease ended his life in Zurich with the help of the assisted suicide group Dignitas.

Reginald Crew, 74, a former car worker from Merseyside, flew to the city with his wife and daughter on 20 January and died after taking a drink laced with a lethal dose of barbiturates. The number of foreigners travelling to Zurich to kill themselves grew from just three in 2000 to 55 last year. But a bill introduced by a Swiss member of parliament can not become law before the end of 2004.

Mr Crew is the second Briton to use the services of Dignitas, which cost only £50 ($82; €75). Merseyside Police are compiling a report on the circumstances surrounding the death for the director of public prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith, amid suggestions that Mr Crew's wife, Win, 71, could be prosecuted for aiding and abetting a suicide. But criminal law experts have cast doubt on whether her actions amount to a crime under English law, and a prosecution seems unlikely. (See p 271.)