The case of Daniel Hume shows the cracks in Australia’s Voluntary Assisted Dying programmes
55yr old convicted paedophile Daniel Hume died at Cessnock Hospital in Australia on August 28 after officials in New South Wales (NSW) approved his application for Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) under NSW’s VAD programme. He had terminal cancer though his family said he was offered oesophagus surgery that could have extended his life, but instead chose VAD. He had served just seven of his 30-years- prison sentence after being convicted of multiple vile sexual offences and indecent assault.
Few will feel sorry for Hume. As his daughter, Neveah Jett – on of his 14 victims who endured years of sexual abuse by her own father – said at his trial in 2015: ‘He was a vile opportunist who created opportunities at every turn’. Apparently, he taunted his victims on his death-bed, rather than begging for their forgiveness.
But Hume’s assisted death provokes troubling questions about who can access VAD and why, as well as secrecy, lack of accountability and transparency in the whole process. Yet Australia’s flagship laws are the model for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life Bill) now being considered in the UK parliament.
Whatever we think of assisted dying in principle, deep moral and legal problems seem to ensue when it is practiced. Australia had not executed a prisoner since 1967. Australian law prohibits the extradition or deportation of a prisoner to another jurisdiction if they could be sentenced to death for any crime. In 2016, Australia published a report lecturing the world about the death penalty. Yet Hume had a lethal injection similar if not identical to the drugs used on death row prisoners in the United States.
Unlike capital punishment, assisted dying happens away from the spotlight, shrouded in secrecy. When two of the so-called Bali Nine – Australian citizens arrested for drug smuggling in Indonesia – were sentenced to death in 2015, a widely-supported Mercy Campaign organized a concert.
In contrast, Hume’s death sentence, which followed his request, was quietly approved by the NSW Voluntary Assisted Dying Board which publishes no justification for its decision. The process of voluntary assisted dying involves four stages of approval, beginning with medical assessments and ending in the final approval of the board, comprising an academic, two lawyers, a medical administrator and a dentist. The bases for approval are not made public.
Because of the bureaucratic secrecy in this process, the outcry about Hume’s killing came only after his death. Jett learned of his death only when a friend sent her the link to a news report. The 27-year-old revealed there was no victim consultation on Hume’s VAD application before the decision was made. ‘I and other victims feel robbed that he did not serve out his natural life in prison. He was given the easy way out, the comfortable way out.’
From another angle, Australian victim’s advocate Howard Brown objected to the lack of accountability of the whole process: ‘If you were confident in the decision you have made as a specialist board, then you would be completely transparent about your decision-making, not clandestine like the VAD board is on these cases.’
The case provokes other questions. How can a prisoner make a free and uncoerced decision to die? Prisoners cannot even have a private consultation with a doctor, as guards must always be present. A prisoner is told when to get up, when to eat, when to go to bed. How can consent freely be given whilst someone is constantly watched by a prison guard? There is – obviously – great opportunity for coercing prisoners. Why did no one on the board even ask such obvious questions?
No consultation preceded the execution, neither with family nor with prison bosses. One prison official, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Australian Daily Telegraph that the ‘approval of Hume’s VAD application to die with dignity last week sparked a dangerous precedent’. No doubt, demand will increase once prisoners desperate to escape prison in any way they can.
Australia is not the only assisted dying programme to euthanise prisoners. Belgium saw the horrific case of Geneviève Lhermitte, the child-murderer who was euthanized in 2023. She was granted euthanasia in 2023. In Canada, at least nine prisoners were euthanised by the end of 2023. Again, the acts were shrouded in secrecy away from any public scrutiny or questioning. A spokesperson for Correctional Services of Canada told the Canadian news service, CTV News: ‘For privacy reasons, we are currently unable to provide a further breakdown of these numbers’. Whose privacy? Not the prisoners’. They were shackled and surrounded by prison guards when they died. It is only through a Freedom of Information request that any of these deaths even came to light.
There is a curious cross-section of justice and health in these cases. Justice is the public’s business even if health decisions are generally private. The reinstatement of executions – even with the prisoner’s assent – is a political concern, as are sentence commutations. The fact that the unaccountable decisions are being made by the VAD board is concerning, to say the least.
NSW only legalized assisted dying three years ago. The difficulties here are heading down the track to the UK. As Dignity in Dying, the organization largely responsible for writing the Leadbeater Bill, note: ‘The models of assisted dying across Australia are very similar to what is being proposed in the UK. Australia continues to provide proof of how assisted dying laws can function safely and effectively, with widespread popular support.’
Dignity in Dying is right to point to Australia but wrong to assert that the laws can function safely and effectively, as the case of Daniel Hume proves. Australia has opened the Pandora’s box of assisted dying. Legislators in the UK need to look behind the glossy propaganda, beyond the false assurances, and learn from the experiences of Australians. The devil of this legislation is in the detail.
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