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
Joan Mary Fry Joan Mary Fry Joan Mary Fry (27 July 1862 – 25 November 1955) was an English Quaker campaigner for peace and social reform. Joan Fry was born on 27 July 1862 in London, into a wealthy family of Quakers. She was the daughter of a judge, Sir Edward Fry and his wife, Mariabella Hodgkin (1833 – 1930), and sister of art critic Roger Fry, who was a member of the avant-garde Bloomsbury Group. During the First World War she served as a Quaker Prison Chaplain and helped conscientious objectors to military service at their tribunals and in prison. In 1919