Police probe 'assisted suicide ' of rugby player

POLICE are today investigating the death of a paralysed rugby player who travelled to an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland.

Daniel James, 23, of Worcester, died in the clinic, where he had travelled with his parents Mark and Julie with the intention of killing himself.

Mr James played rugby for England under-16s and England Students and was tipped for a future in the professional game. But during a training session at Nuneaton Rugby Club in March last year he suffered a collapsed spine in a scrum.

The former Worcester Royal Grammar School pupil was paralysed from the chest down.

West Mercia Police said a man and a woman had been questioned over his death on 12 September.

Assisted suicides are illegal in the UK but tolerated in Switzerland. In the past six years, 100 British people have travelled to the Dignitas clinic and had an assisted death.

No one has been prosecuted for accompanying a relative to die.