A 22-year-old woman has been charged with assisting a suicide, Lincolnshire Police has said.
Milly Caller was arrested in January after her friend Emma Crossman, 21, killed herself using equipment allegedly bought for her by Caller.
Following an enquiry into Crossman’s death, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has now charged Caller with “encouraging or assisting suicide” contrary to the Suicide Act 1961.
Youngest
Caller, who is one of the youngest people ever to be charged with assisted suicide, has been bailed to appear in Lincoln Magistrates’ Court on 16 October.
After Crossman’s death in January, a neighbour said she “didn’t seem to be depressed or poorly”.
Rosemary Ainslie, a CPS senior lawyer said, “the CPS has decided that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction, and that a prosecution is in the public interest”.
Criminalise
Under the law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a person who intentionally encourages or assists the suicide or attempted suicide of another person, commits an offence which carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
In 2010, the Director of Public Prosecutions issued guidance indicating that a prosecution for assisted suicide would be unlikely if the subject was “wholly motivated by compassion”.
Imprisonment
Caller is the second person to be charged with assisting suicide since the guidelines were introduced.
Last year Kevin Howe, 20, was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment after he helped his friend to set fire to himself.
