Former National candidate killed mother

Well that is the possible tabloid headline. The Herald on Sunday reports:

An Auckland-born scientist has admitted in a leaked manuscript to giving his cancer-ravaged mother a lethal overdose of morphine. …

Sean Davison published a book last month about his 85-year-old mother’s final days, without disclosing the role he played after his mother summoned him home to Dunedin to help her die.

However, a copy of his original manuscript, supplied anonymously to the Herald on Sunday this week, contains the incriminating details that were deleted from the book. …

Davison’s memoir, Before We Say Goodbye, was published last month. Adapted from his diary, the book described his mother’s repeated requests for him to help her die, and her unsuccessful 33-day hunger strike. But it skirted around the circumstances of her death, in October 2006 at her Dunedin home.

However, in the manuscript he reveals she died hours after he gave her “a lethal drink of crushed morphine tablets” dissolved in a glass of water.

He wrote: “I held it in front of her and said, ‘If you drink this you will die.’ I really wanted to be so absolutely sure that there was no hesitation.

“She answered, ‘You’re a wonderful son.”‘

It is very sad that our laws forced Davison to do what he did, but he did so out of live and a desire to end his mother’s suffering. A terrible burden to bear though.

Sean was my first National Party candidate – he stood for Dunedin North in 1987, and I was the Regional Chair of the Otago/Southland Young Nationals. A very nice and decent guy.