Britain’s providers of illicit euthanasia services, the so called ‘Mercy Killers’, have expressed mixed feelings about the current cost of living crisis in the UK and how it impacts their. “There’s no doubt that soaring food and energy prices really drove demand for our services during late Summer and Autumn,” ‘Ron’, (not his real name), an under-the-table euthanasia provider operating in the North West, told The Sleaze. “There was suddenly a rush of elderly people who didn’t want to be a burden on their families, or simply couldn’t afford to carry on living, getting in touch. In fact, there was such a glut of would-be euthanasia customers that we just couldn’t keep up with demand!” But ‘Ron’ fears that the onset of Winter and a cold snap combined with high energy prices might choke off the demand. “I know, you’d think that, with the situation worsening, things would pick up even more,” he muses. “The thing is, though, that this cold snap means that elderly people who can’t afford to keep their heating turned up will be turning their toes up from hypothermia, meaning that they don’t need us to help them on their way – all they’ll have to is just sit there in their comfy armchair in their freezing living rooms as the temperature drops!” Consequently, ‘Ron’ believes that the government needs to be giving pensioners more support with their domestic energy bills. “I know that it seems counter-intuitive for someone who relies on this oldsters feeling miserable and suicidal fpr their business to be wanting them helped to keep warm,” he observes. “But the fact is that using our services should be a choice – they shouldn’t just be freezing to death involuntarily and for free!”

According to ‘Ron’, the run-up to Christmas is usually the busiest time of year for euthanasia providers. “We always have a spurt of demand as families who don’t want to have to accommodate some old and infirm relative again over the festive season – depressing the kids with their wheezing , farting during the Queen’s speech and coughing all the way through Love Actually – put pressure on them to put themselves out of their misery,” he explains. “You know how it is: if they can get them to pop their clogs in late November, then they can have a brief period of mourning, a swift burial or cremation and get it all done with time to spare to prepare for Christmas. Everyone’s happy!” He concedes that post-Christmas can also produce a spike in demand. “There are those who decide to give their elderly relatives one last good Christmas before they shuffle off this mortal coil in January,” he says. “After all, January is already depressing as it is, so a death and a funeral won’t make any difference.” This Christmas and New Year though, he fears, will produce slim pickings. “The buggers all know that all they have to do is make sure their old folks just stay in their freezing homes and the problem will be solved naturally,” he says, angrily. “Maybe just disable their boilers to make sure, but nonetheless they get to knock them off for free!”

‘Ron’ is keen to point out that, while his and the other euthanasia providers’ activities are illegal under current UK laws on assisted dying, those in his profession aren’t in the business of murdering people for profit. “The people we deal with are usually the elderly, infirm and incurably ill, often suffering great pain – they want to die,” he contends. “All that we do is to provide them with support and the means to actually do themselves in – while it is easy to decide that you want to die, it isn’t always easy to be able to actually do it. Indeed, for some disabled people, it is physically impossible for them to do the deed. So we just help them along.” As for the matter of the fees that they charge, ‘Ron’ claims that they are only to cover expenses – travel to and from the victim, the various toxins and drugs they provide and the like. “We’re providing a service, for God’s sake,” he points out. “The sort of people we deal with can’t afford to go to one of those clinic in Switzerland where you can legally end it all by drinking poison – we provide the needy with an affordable alternative that can be administered in the comfort of their own homes.” ‘Ron’ insists that most of the time his job consists simply of visiting clients at home, providing hem with pills or toxins in a fatal dosage, then sitting with them and giving moral support to make out sure that they go through with it. “There’s no question of forcing anyone to kill themselves,” he says. “They’ve already decided to die, they are usually depressed and often in pain – if they start to waver, we just have to remind them of the reasons they want to die. I have to say that with the government having made Britain such a depressing place to live, this has become easier and easier.”

The so called ‘Mercy Killer’ says that he is always scrupulous in making sure that his clients really do want to end it all, even those who cannot speak. “I did this fellow once who had ‘locked in’ syndrome – he could communicate only by blinking his eyes,” he explains, as an example. “Well, one of his relatives got in touch to tell me that the chap had decided that he wanted to end it all, but that the rest of the family was against it, so could I help? Well, I had to be sure, so I met with the client and his relative and I asked him if he really wanted to die – he blinked his eyes furiously, which the relative assured me was a positive. So I smothered him with a pillow, there and then.” ‘Ron’ has described how he got into the business of mercy killings, claiming that it was an extension of his former career as a TV repair man. “I used to come into contact with a lot of people when I was doing that, but the work dried up as TVs started going solid state and all you had to do was change circuit boards – the skill went out of it,” he recalls. “Nonetheless, I kept in touch with a lot of my old customers and as they got older, a lot of them would tell me of how they’d like to end it all, but didn’t know how, or were afraid that they couldn’t go through with it. So, one thing led to another and I started doing it as a service for friends, then word spread and the business built from there.”

Are there limits as to the circumstances under which ‘Ron’ would offer his services, though? Would he, for instance, agree to help someone who wasn’t old or physically ill, but instead was suffering from a debilitating mental illness? “Well, most of my clients are either elderly or have severely life-limiting disabilities, so it is obvious that their reasons for wanting to die are completely legitimate,” he opines. “I don’t know about mental illnesses, though. I mean, if they were some kind of psycho nutter likely to become an axe murderer, then I’d have no qualms – I’d be doing society, not just them, a favour. But I don’t know about stuff like depression, where they might change their minds the next day, or if they were on medication. But then again, everyone has a right to die, don’t they?” Would he employ a mercy killer himself if he became ill and infirm? “Are you insane?” he asks. “Let some bloody amateur administer what they think is a fatal dosage of some drug they got off the internet and end up dying horribly in violent convulsions and choking on my own vomit? Not that that’s ever happened to any of my clients, of course – I’m a responsible pro, but you just can’t be sure of who you’ll get!”