Edward Downes "serious health problems" suffered by the couple. A statement issued by the couple's children said that while Downes could have gone on living with his deafness and blindness, he did not want to do so after his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer. In March 2010, Keir Starmer (director of public prosecutions) stated that Caractacus Downes would not be prosecuted for his involvement with his parents' assisted suicide because it was not in the public interest. Edward Downes Sir Edward Thomas ("Ted") Downes, CBE (17 June 1924 – 10 July 2009) was an English conductor, specialising in opera. He was
Mollie Panter-Downes Mollie Panter-Downes Mary Patricia "Mollie" Panter-Downes (25 August 1906 – 22 January 1997) was a British novelist and columnist for "The New Yorker". Aged sixteen, she wrote "The Shoreless Sea" which became a bestseller; eight editions were published in 1923 and 1924, and the book was serialised in The Daily Mirror. Her second novel "The Chase" was published in 1925. She was born to Major Edward Martin Panter-Downes (died 1914 at Mons) and Marie Kathleen Cowley who was of Irish origin. After her marriage to Clare Robinson in 1927, the couple moved to Surrey, and in 1938 Panter-Downes began writing