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August 3, 2006updated 22 Nov 2022 8:29pm

Messent charged with time wasting

By Press Gazette

Birmingham journalist Maureen Messent, who in February claimed to have helped kill her terminally ill aunt, has been charged with wasting police time. In her Birmingham Mail column, debating euthanasia laws, Messent, 67, alleged she gave her aunt Eileen O'Sullivan a lethal overdose of morphine 40 years ago in Devon to alleviate her suffering from lung cancer.

The Crown Prosecution Service took the decision to press charges following an investigation by Cornwall and Devon Police. Messent will appear in Newton Abbot Magistrates Court on 15 August.

In March, Messent was arrested by Cornwall and Devon Police and released on bail until 23 June while the police were advised by the CPS on prosecution charges for either murder or wasting police time.

According to Messent's piece, a doctor and family friend had said: "Give her this as she needs it."

Messent was last month listed in Press Gazette's Regional Hall of Fame.

 

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