The families of British citizens who died at the same euthanasia clinic as Wendy Duffy have condemned Swiss medics for not warning relatives or giving them a chance to change their loved ones’ minds.
The Pegasos clinic near Basel, Switzerland, has been under renewed scrutiny since Wendy, a physically healthy 56-year-old woman, chose to end her life there after the death of her 23-year-old son.
The former care worker from the West Midlands had previously attempted to take her own life, and eventually chose to pay £10,000 to die at the clinic after struggling to cope.
While Wendy’s siblings were alerted before her death, 84-year-old Judith Hamilton spent a whole week agonising about her son’s whereabouts and only found out about his death at Pegasos when she reported him missing to the police.
Alastair, a 47-year-old chemistry teacher from Hampton, south west London, had been struggling with physical health issues but had no confirmed diagnosis before he died at Pegasos in 2023.
He had told his mother Judith he was in Paris visiting a friend, when he had actually travelled to the suicide clinic to die in secret.
When Alastair’s calls and texts to his mother suddenly stopped, Judith spent a whole week worrying about his whereabouts, after the clinic failed to alert any of the family about his decision to end his life.
‘We contacted the police and they found out from his bank records he’d actually gone to Pegasos. They had to get Swiss police involved, the British Embassy was involved, and Interpol. It was a nightmare for us to get any information,’ Judith, from London, told the Mirror.
British former care worker Wendy Duffy, 56, was physically healthy and of sound mind, but took her own life at a controversial ‘suicide clinic’ in Switzerland last week
Chemistry teacher Alastair Hamilton told his parents he was visiting a friend in Paris when instead he was flying to Basel, Switzerland to end his life by lethal injection
Anne Canning, 51, from Wales, travelled to the Pegasos clinic in the Swiss city of Basel in January 2025 to end her life without informing her family
According to Pegasos’ own guidelines, the clinic ‘requires that you inform your family at some point, even if you know that they will not be supportive’.
While the clinic claims that they were told Alastair’s friend had informed the family, Judith insists she had no idea, and Pegasos did not carry out any further checks to confirm relatives were made aware beforehand.
The death of Wendy has brought fresh ‘heartache’ for Alastair’s devastated mother, who remains haunted by the fact that she never got to wish a final goodbye to her son.
‘It’s just such a heartbreaking scenario for these the families left behind,’ she says.
‘I am nothing like the woman I was before he died. It’s just a permanent sadness in my heart and although I’ve got other children and grandchildren it doesn’t make up for the one that’s not here.
‘You just feel as if you could grab hold of them, hold them tight for two or three years – maybe their outlook on life would have changed. We were robbed of that chance.’
Before his death, Alastair had been losing weight and was suffering from abdominal pain.
He saw numerous consultants, desperately trying to diagnose the problem, but no cause had been found.
The ordeal had a huge impact on him, and he moved back home just months before travelling to Pegasos, after limiting how many days he worked.
The family were unable to get a post-mortem after his death to discover what had actually been wrong.
‘His health was very important to him and the rapid decline had stopped him having the life that he enjoyed. He loved going to the gym and walking and things like that. That was his main joy, not having children of his own,’ Judith says.
‘I think he just I thought: “Well, I haven’t even got my house now, what have I got?”‘
Reflecting on the case of Wendy – whose only child Marcus died four years ago after choking on a sandwich that became lodged in his windpipe – Judith says she understands her struggle.
‘It doesn’t get any easier. I can understand Wendy’s depth of loss and emptiness now he’s gone – I just wonder if more support could have been given to people like her and my son.’
She believes it is of paramount importance that families are alerted when their loved ones choose to die at clinics such Pegasos, to give relatives a chance to offer them more support.
‘If they’re in agreement with the loved one’s choice, then they can go there and sit by their side as they die. Or they can go there and persuade them to not go through it and bring them home again. We were robbed of that chance.’
Alastair’s distraught mother Judith Hamilton warned that other families should be aware of the ‘cowboy clinic’ called Pegasos
Maureen Slough, a 58-year-old mother from Cavan who took her own life at the Pegasos clinic, and her daughter Megan Royal
Following the death of Alastair, Pegasos vowed to begin contacting relatives before future procedures.
But in January 2025, 51-year-old British mother Anne Canning – who was not terminally ill and was said to be grieving her son – also died there without her family being told.
Delia Canning said finding out about her sister’s decision ‘felt like living in a horror film’ and added that she was disgusted that the Pegasos did not warn loved ones in advance.
‘The impact Anne’s decision had on us was more about the shock and horror that such a thing could be arranged and executed in such a short timeframe, in absolute secret from all loved ones, with no other avenues being explored first,’ the 54-year-old dance instructor told the Telegraph.
She and her two brothers learnt about Anne’s decision only after she sent them goodbye letters from Switzerland, where they thought she was on holiday.
Following days of ‘complete silence’ from the clinic as they struggled to track down their sister using the postmarks on the letters, they received a two-line email from Pegasos confirming their worst nightmare.
In 2022, the Swiss Medical Association produced guidelines saying a family should always be informed if a relative intends to die, but they are not legally binding.
Swiss law requires anyone seeking assisted death to be of sound mind, though they do not need to be terminally ill or have a medical condition. Pegasos says it tests decision-making capacity with extensive psychiatric assessments before approving any procedure.
The euthanasia clinic came under fire again in summer last year, after a family allegedly received a text message from the centre telling them their mother was dead and her ashes would be sent in the post.
Maureen Slough, a 58-year-old mother from Cavan, Ireland, travelled to the facility on July 8, telling her family she was going to Lithuania with a friend.
But her daughter Megan Royal was shocked when she later received a WhatsApp message saying her mother had died listening to gospel music sung by Elvis Presley.
‘They sent me a message on WhatsApp… it’s an insult. All this was done without any dignity,’ she told a Swiss news channel.
Friends of the mother were also horrified by the way the clinic reportedly repatriated the woman’s remains: in the post.
‘You get letters in the post, not people,’ one friend of Maureen, Stephanie Daly, told the Irish Independent.
Maureen’s partner, Mick Lynch, said he spoke to her on the morning he would later realise was the day of her death.
‘I was actually talking to her that morning and she was full of life,’ he said.
‘She said after having her breakfast… she was going out to sit in the sun. Maybe she was heading off to that place. I still thought she was coming home.’
After the shock of finding out Maureen had travelled alone to Switzerland and paid a reported £13,000 to the Pegasos Swiss Association to facilitate her death two days later, the family set about finding out how this could have happened.
They were shocked that Pegasos accepted her application, considering the woman’s long history of mental illness, and claimed the clinic did not inform the family of her plan.
The family insisted Maureen was not in her right mind when she made the decision to travel to the clinic, considering the fact that she was grief-stricken after the deaths of her two sisters.
She had allegedly attempted suicide a year earlier following the devastating news.
The Pegasos group said that it received a letter from Maureen’s daughter, Megan, saying she was aware of her mother’s desire to die, and accepted her decision.
The clinic also claimed it verified the authenticity of the letter through an email response to Megan, using an email address supplied by her mother.
Megan insisted she never wrote such a letter, however, or verified any contact from the assisted dying clinic.
The family claimed Maureen may have forged the ‘letter’ and verified it using an email address she created herself.
‘They should not have allowed her to make that decision on her own. This group did not contact me, even though my mother had nominated me as next of kin,’ Megan said.
Following Maureen’s death, the clinic said it has tightened its rules once again. It will no longer accept unaccompanied applicants with living relatives unless their next of kin provide passport copies and take part in a video call with staff.
A Pegasos spokesman previously told the Daily Mail: ‘We take great issue with any allegations that we are acting without regulation or unethically. Pegasos has always complied and will continue to comply with Swiss law without exception.
‘We ask for medical or psychiatric reports from independent specialists and applicants are required to speak to a doctor or psychiatrist during the process. These confidential conversations determine whether voluntary assisted death is the only and last option – and some people reconsider.
‘It is standard procedure for applicants to be interviewed again by a doctor the day before the death. Only if the doctor confirms they are capable of judgement can the procedure take place.’
