TERMINALLY ill with motor neurone disease and with only weeks to live, 47-year-old former actress and singer Annie Lindsell has won her fight for a painless death.

But if she now has that mercy after launching a court battle to be given a drug that will relieve her suffering but also hasten her death, the outcome cannot be said to be wholly satisfactory.

For it comes after her GP, an opponent of euthanasia, relented in the face of her legal challenge in the High Court and agreed to administer the drug without a legal guarantee that he would not face a murder charge.

As the law stands, it is not in the power of the courts to grant such immunity anyway.

The nearest protection a doctor has in such an instance is that of a House of Lords select committee declaration three years ago stating that doctors could administer potentially fatal doses as long as they were intended to relieve pain and not to kill.

This is a fudge as is the nod and a wink approval given to Miss Lindsell's worried GP yesterday.

The law should be clear and written down - and certainly not paving the way to legalised euthanasia by the back door.

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