Duchess of Cambridge's childhood friend should have had 'right to die'

The Duchess of Cambridge, centre back, with Isobel Kennerley, left back, at Brownies 
The Duchess of Cambridge, centre back, with Isobel Kennerley, left back, at Brownies  Credit: XclusivePix/Claudia Joseph

A terminally-ill childhood friend of the Duchess of Cambridge should have been allowed to take her own life, her mother has said.

Isobel Kennerley, who was a member of the Duchess’s Brownie pack, had begged to be allowed to die after a three-year battle with a brain tumour that left her with “'the utmost pain, distress and loss of dignity”.

The 34-year-old, who had cerebral palsy, was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2014 but suffered horrifically before she eventually died in May, her mother has said.

Christine Eeley, 65, from Newbury, Berks, has called for a change in the law to enable terminally-ill and mentally competent people to be able to “control the manner and the timing” of their deaths.

She said she had been left “traumatised” by her daughter's painful death and wished the law had allowed her to put a plan in place that would have enabled her daughter to die with dignity when her condition deteriorated.

Isobel Kennerley
Isobel Kennerley

“We had talked about it quite a lot,” she told the Telegraph. “We talked about going to Dignitas but it’s getting the timing right. It’s amazing how quickly you deteriorate.

“I think she thought she’d just fade away but she suffered so much, it was just horrific.”

Miss Kennerley met the Duchess and her sister, the newlywed Pippa Matthews, in 1990, when they joined the 1st St Andrew's pack of Brownies.

She was in the Duchess’s six and joined the sisters on a pack holiday to Macaroni Wood in the Cotswolds in Easter 1991.

She married her husband, Scott Kennerley, in 2010, and worked as teaching assistant in Newbury, specialising in caring for autistic children, but she started to get pains down one side of her body in 2014 and was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour later that year.

Isobel Kennerley and her husband Scott
Isobel Kennerley and her husband Scott

Mrs Eeley, who is supporting retired lecturer Noel Conway, 67, who has Motor Neurone Disease, in his High Court battle for the right to die, said she had talked about taking her own life but that when she became so ill that she wanted to end it, she could not even lift her own hands to take anything.

“She was completely and utterly trapped in her own body,” she said.

“It is all about timings. I wish we had done it, I wish we had made a plan. We just wanted her to die, we were urging her to let go.

“We talk about people living with cancer but we never talk about people dying with cancer.

“'That's why I feel so strongly that people should have the choice of how to end their lives.”

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