ON MONDAY morning, I arrived at the Priory Street Centre to listen with only 20 minutes left of Dr Philip Nitschke’s public presentation.

The first thing I heard was Dr Nitschke bemoaning the unavailability of a tranquilliser used intravenously by vets but which could, if drunk, kill a human in minutes.

Unfortunately, there was no slot in the free programme for questions, so I was unable to ask whether the drug had been formulated to be lethal only in cases of informed adults in full possession of their mental faculties and determined to kill themselves humanely.

Next he described as “the final indignity” the requirement by one jurisdiction permitting medically assisted suicide of asking the applicant to submit to a psychological test.

Yet he failed to spot the inconsistency between his outrage and his own need to satisfy himself that his star pupil, Lisette Nigot, was of “sound mind” before imparting to her the knowledge she craved to end her life.

Finally, he outlined techniques to commit suicide in a way which leaves no traces, making it impossible for a doctor to suspect foul play and so pass the file to the coroner.

Why? Because apparently some would-be suicides are embarrassed at the thought of lumbering their next of kin with the stigma of suicide (though it could equally be that some would feel awful to die thinking they had denied their loved ones the opportunity to swindle life assurance companies out of thousands of pounds).

Name and address supplied.