Euthanasia campaigner confessed to son

Voluntary euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin told her son she broke the law a month before she went on trial for the attempted murder of her dying mother, a documentary reveals.

Martin was found guilty on one of two attempted murder counts at the end of a two-week trial in the High Court at Wanganui in March last year and served 7 1/2 months of a 15-month jail sentence.

The charges arose from a book she published in 2002 called To Die Like A Dog in which she told how she administered an overdose of morphine and held a pillow over the head of her dying mother, Joy Martin, in 1999.

The documentary team, led by producer and director Leanne Pooley, followed Martin from the months before the trial until she left Arohata Women's Prison.

The documentary starts with the trial verdict, the flurry of media surrounding Martin as she walks from the courtroom and the nationwide coverage of the trial and the controversy over voluntary euthanasia.

Then it bounces back to the months before the trial and Martin's work spearheading the group Exit New Zealand (now known as Dignity NZ), pushing for a law change to allow the terminally-ill to choose to be put to death.

In one scene, Martin cuddles her son Sean, 9, explaining to him that police arrested her "because I broke the law as it stands at the moment".

Sean is concerned that his mother will go to jail. She tells him, "only if it goes really wrong", but expresses confidence that "New Zealanders won't let me go to jail".

She tells him she feels that in her tummy, while Sean says he too has a feeling in his tummy and it's "bad".

Courtroom scenes are interspersed with what went on outside, before and during the trial.

In one dramatic moment there is a meltdown between Martin and her husband of just one year, New Plymouth real estate agent Warren Fulljames, in which they argue bitterly.

The dispute was over whether Australian voluntary euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke, who supported her during the trial, should give media interviews against the advice of her lawyers and the wishes of Mr Fulljames, who has paid some of his wife's legal bills.

The marriage broke up not long after Martin left prison.

She said she found watching the documentary, The Promise, very emotional, particularly as it features her older brother Michael, who died after a truck crash in April.

"I think what the documentary shows is that I am just an ordinary person."

On screen

The Promise: The Lesley Martin Story 9pm Thursday, TV One.