What drives a mother to help her child die? For almost a year, Panorama cameras have been following Kay Gilderdale - the woman at the centre of the recent Assisted Suicide trial - as she faced a possible life sentence over her part in the death of her daughter Lynn.

She talks exclusively to Jeremy Vine about the night she helped her bedridden daughter kill herself and explores whether the law should be changed with those on both sides of the debate, including Debbie Purdy and Baroness Campbell.

Watch ‘I Helped My Daughter Die’ on BBC One on Monday 1^st February 2010 at 20.30.

In the Panorama programme, Kay’s grief at losing her ‘beautiful daughter’ turns to disbelief as the Crown Prosecution Service pressed on with a charge of attempted murder.  She had already pleaded guilty to assisting in her daughter’s suicide.  The maximum sentence for assisted suicide is 14 years; the maximum for attempted murder is life.

 

In court, a jury returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty on the attempted murder charge and, giving her a conditional discharge on the assisted suicide charge the Judge, Mr Justice Bean, took the unusual step of questioning the CPS decision to press ahead with the trial.

 

The verdict comes just four months after the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, released interim guidelines supposed to clarify the law in such cases.

 

During the course of the programme, Kay explores whether the law surrounding assisted suicide should be changed.  She talks to those on both sides of the debate, including: Debbie Purdy, who wants her husband Omar to be able to help her travel abroad to die - free from fear of prosecution - should her progressive MS become unbearable; and Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, who thinks the DPP's recent  guidelines are opening the door to a potential change in the law - one which she believes could be ‘dangerous’ for anyone who, like her, suffers a terminal or incurable health condition.

 

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