Police are not investigating the deaths of the husband and wife who became the first terminally ill British couple to be helped to die together in Switzerland, it emerged yesterday.
Peter and Penelope Duff, who were 80 and 70 and had terminal cancer, died at the Dignitas clinic near Zurich last week.
Supporters and opponents of euthanasia expected the police to look into the circumstances of the case to find out if anyone else had helped them to take their lives, which is illegal in the UK. But police in Somerset, where the couple lived, and in Dorset, where they have friends and relatives, said they were not investigating. The Crown Prosecution Service also said that it was not working on the case.
Friends continued to pay tribute to the couple, who left their home in Bath, telling neighbours they were going to live in Dorset but instead travelled to Switzerland.
Shirley Parker, 75, who knew the Duffs when they lived in Dorset before they moved to their £2m Georgian home in Bath, described them as "vibrant and energetic".
She said: "They took a very active part in village life. They were both very vibrant characters who were active and always walking their dogs in the forest.
"Their dynamism and enthusiasm was fantastic and that's the thing that people will remember them by.
"They were so pro-active that I can understand how awful they would have found it to have their interest in the arts and activities cut short by cancer.
"I can well imagine that two characters like them would find losing their strength and vitality awful because they were so energetic."
She added: "If they thought they were going to put their children and grandchildren through a long, stressful death they would have just wanted to get on with it. Rather than sit back and wait to die they would want to spare people and themselves a long drawn-out agony."
The couple's family declined to comment. They put out a statement on Thursday evening confirming that the couple had died last week.
It said: "Peter and Penny Duff passed away peacefully together in Zurich after a long battle against their terminal cancer on 27 February. Penny had fought a rare cancer, GIST [gastrointestinal stromal tumour], since 1992 and Peter's colon cancer had spread to his liver."
In the past police have investigated British people who have travelled to the Dignitas clinic. The case of 23-year-old Daniel James, who was paralysed from the chest down in a rugby accident, was investigated by police because his parents accompanied him to Switzerland. No charges were brought by the CPS. The Duff case has provoked fierce debate, coming as it does a few weeks before supporters of euthanasia are expected to put an amendment to a bill calling for the law on assisted suicide to be reviewed again.
John Troyer, a researcher in death and society at the University of Bath, said: "This is not an isolated case. Instead it's indicative of a larger trend that will become more and more common. The question of whether terminally ill people should have the right to choose when to die isn't going to go away and parliament can either choose to address it or not."
Paul Bowen, a barrister who specialises in human rights at Doughty Street Chambers in London, said one solution could be to permit assisted suicide only once the facts had been put before a judge.
Dignitas has refused to comment on the couple's death.