The Melksham family of right-to-die campaigner Tony Nicklinson will find out next week if their long-running bid to change the law on assisted suicide has been successful.
The family has waited over six months for a decision, since a Supreme Court hearing into the case was adjourned in December.
Mr Nicklinson, who suffered from locked-in syndrome following a stroke in 2005, campaigned to allow his family to help him take his own life without fear of prosecution.
In 2012 a landmark High Court ruling denied the family the change they had campaigned for. A week later he died of pneumonia at the family’s home in Thames Crescent.
Last year his widow Jane won the right to continue the fight in his name, and took the case before nine of Britain’s top judges at the Supreme Court. She was joined by fellow campaigner Paul Lamb, of Leeds, who was paralysed in a car accident in 1990 and also wished to end his own life.
Last December Mrs Nicklinson attended the first two days of the hearing.
Speaking afterwards she said: “It’s difficult to tell how it’s gone, they don’t give much away.
“We feel very strongly, something needs to be done.”
Yesterday the family confirmed through Mr Nicklinson’s Twitter account, which they use to provide updates, that a date had been set for the judgement to be announced. It will be made public at London’s Supreme Court on Wednesday at 9.45am.
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