MS sufferer took own life to Sinatra song

Published on Thursday 23 December 2010 14:01

An academic at the centre of an assisted suicide row was found dead with Frank Sinatra's I Did It My Way blasting from a laptop computer.

Caroline Loder, who pioneered treatment for multiple sclerosis, ended her life by gassing herself.

The 48-year-old former university lecturer, was also wearing a T-shirt with the poignant message "Live life to the full" when her body was discovered by a neighbour.

Miss Loder, who was known as Cari, had made no secret of her plans to end her life and had confided in friends and family that she did not want to end up in a care home.

Police arrested Libby Wilson, 84, a Glasgow-based right-to-die campaigner, and two men - one aged in his 70s and one in his 50s - who they feared may have helped her die.

Under current law they could each have faced 14 years in prison but no charges were brought against either of the men, or against the former GP, who runs the organisation Friends at the End.

She had spoken to Miss Loder in the days before she died.

Victoria Crocker told an inquest hearing in Woking, Surrey, how her younger sister, who she described as "self contained" and "independent", was diagnosed with MS in 1992.

Over the years her condition had deteriorated with it declining further in the months before she died.

In March 2009 she made an unsuccessful attempt to end her life by taking an overdose of her prescription medication.

In May Mrs Crocker visited her sister at her home in Farncombe, Surrey, to say goodbye before heading off on holiday.

"She (Caroline] said that she had made up her mind and that she probably wouldn't be here when I came home," said Mrs Crocker.

"She was basically very calm, ready to do it and, in quotes, 'do it her way'."

She told how her sister never hid the motivation for ending her life and described how she found the prospect of having to go into a care home "totally intolerable".

Caroline, a former lecturer at London University's Institute of Education, discovered a treatment for MS by accident in 1994 which became known as the "Cari Loder regime".

She wrote a book, Standing in the Sunshine, about her recovery and 138 other MS sufferers volunteered to take part in the treatment.

But towards the end of her life her condition forced her to spend her days confined to the sofa of her house.

On 6 June a canister of helium that she had ordered from a party shop in nearby Guildford was delivered to her home.

On the morning of 8 June her neighbour, John Bicknall, called in at her home as normal in order to walk her two dogs.

When he returned less than 40 minutes later Mr Bicknall could not get an answer at the door so let himself in with his own key.

"I found Caroline on the settee," he said."She was sitting, leaning backwards."

He described how Frank Sinatra's song My Way, with its refrain "I did it my way", was "blasting" from her laptop computer.

He said finding Caroline like this was not a complete shock for him as she had told him that she was going to kill herself and she wanted him to be the one to find her.

Recording a verdict of suicide assistant deputy Surrey Coroner Richard Travers said: "In light of all the evidence before me I am satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that Miss Loder took her own life."