Mum dies days after making utterly heartbreaking deathbed confession

A mum who admitted to killing her terminally-ill son just days ago has died, her family has announced.

Antonya Cooper, 77, from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, died over the weekend from incurable breast, pancreatic and liver cancer.

Her son Hamish was five when he was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma – a rare childhood cancer – and died on December 1, 1981 aged seven.

Antonya’s daughter Tabitha said in a statement to the BBC: ‘She was peaceful, pain free, at home and surrounded by her loving family.

‘It was exactly the way she wanted it. She lived life on her terms and she died on her terms.’

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Thames Valley Police visited the family after making some initial enquiries.

Antonya previously told the BBC that she had made the decision to end her son’s life by giving him a fatally large dose because he was in a ‘lot of pain’.

Police said it was ‘aware of reports relating to an apparent case of assisted dying of a seven-year-old boy in 1981’.

It added: ‘At this early stage, the force is making inquiries into these reports and is not in a position to comment further while these investigations continue.’

Antonya talked about her final moments with her son in May and said: ‘In the middle of the night, we were by his bedside.

‘He was expressing that he had pain and I said, “Would you like me to take the pain away?”

‘He said, “Yes please, Mama”, and so I gave him a dose of morphine sulphate through his Hickman catheter.

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‘We had watched him brave through all that beastly treatment, we had had him for longer than the original prognosis, so the time was right.’

Deliberately ending a person’s life by euthanasia to relieve suffering is illegal in England.

Antonya had made calls on the government to change its stance on assisted dying and had joined the assisted dying clinic in Switzerland called Dignitas.

The current law means that somebody can be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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Mum dies days after making utterly heartbreaking deathbed confession

Mum dies days after making utterly heartbreaking deathbed confession

Mum dies days after making utterly heartbreaking deathbed confession

Mum dies days after making utterly heartbreaking deathbed confession

Mum dies days after making utterly heartbreaking deathbed confession