My sister was so brave court told

By JAMES GARDINER


The brother of euthanasia advocate Lesley Martin yesterday described his sister's care of their dying mother as "the gutsiest thing I ever saw".

Michael Charles Martin was called as a prosecution witness as his sister's trial on two counts of attempted murder entered its second week in the High Court at Wanganui.

Mr Martin described his personal regret that he was not there in the week before their mother, Joy Patricia Martin, 69, died at home in May 1999.

He said Lesley begged him not to travel to Nelson in the week before Mrs Martin's death.

"I still went and I regret it," he told his sister's lawyer, Dr Donald Stevens, QC.

Asked why, he said: "Because I missed out on the last few hours of my mother's being."

In fact Mr Martin did return to Wanganui in the early hours, the day before Joy Martin died, but by then his mother was unconscious and she never came out of her coma.

The Crown alleges Lesley Martin, 40, a registered nurse of New Plymouth, twice attempted to murder her terminally ill mother, first by administering a high dose of the painkiller morphine and then by attempting to suffocate her with a pillow.

Charges were not laid until three years after the death when Lesley Martin published a book called To Die Like A Dog.

It described events surrounding her mother's death and advocated a change in the law against voluntary euthanasia.

Mr Martin, who was a police constable based in Waiouru in 1999, told prosecutor Andrew Cameron his mother discussed ending her own life after undergoing surgery for bowel cancer then declining further surgery when secondary cancer was discovered on her liver.

"She said to me 'Michael' - she usually called me Michael, especially when I was in trouble - 'if there was a switch I'd throw it now; I'm sick of this'."

Asked whether he discussed euthanasia with Lesley, he said there were "general discussions in a broader sense ... along the lines of you wouldn't let your dog die this way.

"It wasn't specifically related to Mum, though."

Earlier in the day, Lesley Martin broke down in tears and was excused from court by Justice John Wild while retired pathologist Dr Kenneth John Thomson gave evidence.

Dr Thomson, who performed the autopsy on Joy Martin, found no evidence of suffocation and concluded she died of respiratory arrest caused by either morphine administration or broncho-pneumonia.

The day ended with toxicologist Professor Timothy James Maling telling the court the "toxic" levels of morphine in Mrs Martin's bloodstream at the time of death were higher than would be expected from the doses she was known to have been given.

Mr Cameron asked whether the level would be consistent with a 30mg dose of morphine being administered one or two hours before death, and Professor Maling said that such a dose could have caused significant respiratory depression and possibly death.

After that, Dr Stevens said the Crown had introduced a "whole new dimension" and "traversed beyond the brief we were given".

He said he would need time to consult medical experts before continuing cross-examination of Professor Maling today.

Mr Cameron disputed that.

He said the evidence was not beyond the material disclosed to the defence.