| 释义 |
suicide
n. The act of killing oneself intentionally. Since 1961 suicide itself is not a crime, but there is a special statutory crime (punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment) of aiding, abetting, counselling, or procuring a suicide. In practice very few prosecutions are brought for this offence. Doing nothing to stop someone else from committing suicide is not abetting it, but euthanasia (mercy killing) in the form of giving assistance to the sufferer (rather than actually killing him) may amount to aiding (R v Wallis (1983) 5 Cr App R (S) 342). When two people agree that one of them shall kill the other and then commit suicide (a suicide pact), the one who does the killing is guilty, if he survives, not of murder but of manslaughter. |