A LEADING campaigner for assisted suicide has accompanied a fifth person to a clinic where they took their own life, The Argus can exclusively reveal.

Retired GP Michael Irwin, from Hove, has just returned home from Switzerland where he watched John Hofsess die.

Mr Hofsess, 77, was a leader of the right-to-die movement in Canada and decided to attend the clinic in Basle on Monday after becoming terminally ill.

The magazine writer founded the Right to Die Society of Canada in 1991 and in the mid 1990s he began secretly helping severely-ill Canadians to die.

In particular, he did this in 2000 when he helped Al Purdy, a famous Canadian poet, to die this way.

His “confession” was published in a monthly magazine this week.

Dr Irwin, 84, who has said he is prepared to take his own life when the time comes, has been nicknamed Dr Death because of his outspoken views on the right to die.

He said he does not expect any legal difficulties as Mr Hofsess is not a British citizen and he would have gained nothing from his death.

He said: “I have known John Hofsess since 2000 when we met in Boston at a conference of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies.

“We kept in touch since then, meeting every couple of years but exchanging very many e-mails.

"As he became progressively more ill in recent years, we discussed his options.

“He preferred to go to Switzerland rather than try to end his life at home, which could easily have been unsuccessful.

“I was willing to help someone who had become a very good friend and fellow campaigner.

“When he died at Lifecircle, I was with him, along with two Canadian friends.

“He was totally relaxed. In the background Paul Robeson was singing Old Man River and, just before John died, he had a spoonful of ice cream which was his favourite dessert.”

In his final pieces of writing, Mr Hofsess said: “I am setting an example by dying legally with professional assistance, dying openly and proudly, among compassionate friends.

“I am having a first-class death with legal assistance.”