Police arrest two after North East man's assisted suicide
Sep 2 2010 by Andy Hughes, The Journal
The Journal understands that one of the suspects is allegedly a close friend and former neighbour of Mr Sinclair, who had little contact with his only daughter in his latter years.
Mr Sinclair’s death comes after a string of high-profile assisted suicides.
These including well-known conductor Sir Edward Downes, 85, and his wife Joan, 74, from London, who ended their lives at the Dignitas clinic last year, after both had suffered illnesses.
In December 2008, controversial footage of 59-year-old motor neurone disease-sufferer Craig Ewert showed the university lecturer end his own life with a mouth switch, after he flew to Switzerland from his home in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.
Neighbours who lived alongside Mr Sinclair for up to two decades yesterday told of their sorrow at seeing him become confined to a wheelchair, and his eventual death.
Joe Bolam, 68, of Highfield Drive, said: “When we heard what had happened, the whole street was devastated.
“But if it’s true that he chose to take his own life, then I have no problem with that. It’s his life and his choice.
“He was a delightful man who was very popular around the community.
“He never got over the death of his wife, but I noticed that his conditioned worsened in the last few years and he moved to a care home last year.”
Mr Sinclair is believed to have retired from his position as an engineer in Gateshead’s Team Valley trading estate when his wife fell ill.
Friends said he never fully recovered from losing her.
Multiple system atrophy attacks the brain and nervous system, and like Parkinson’s disease, can cause sufferers to lose feeling and control of their whole body.
Following his death last month, Mr Sinclair’s body was flown back to Britain for his funeral at the Holy Rosary Church in Horsley Hill, South Shields, on Thursday last week, before his ashes were buried at South Tyneside’s Harton Cemetery.
A recently published notice of the death stated Mr Sinclair died “peacefully and with dignity, following an illness courageously borne”.
