But, Blackburn adds, "She is scared that the pain relief can cause confusion and a loss of clarity. Monday night's episode of Coronation Street comes at a topical moment for the right to die debate. Lord Falconer's assisted dying bill, allowing a terminally ill person to choose the manner and timing of their death, will be debated in the Lords this year. The bill would enable terminally ill patients deemed to have no more than six months to live to be prescribed a fatal dose of drugs if they demonstrated that they have reached a "clear and settled intention" to end their life.
In a paper published by the campaign group Living and Dying Well , the three lawyers argued: "The law exists not only, or even primarily, to punish offenders but also to indicate those actions of which, as a society, we disapprove. One of those actions is aiding and abetting other people's suicides.
But does the current law express disapproval of aiding and abetting suicides? The question was thrown into relief this week when, following an inquest into the suicide pact of an elderly Newbury couple , it was revealed that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided it was not in the public interest to prosecute the daughter who assisted them.
The inquest heard that retired GP David Arnold, 82, and his wife Elizabeth, 85, a retired teacher, wanted to die because they were both struggling with debilitating illnesses. They had sought help from the euthanasia clinic Dignitas , but it had turned them down because of Elizabeth Arnold's "mental deterioration". So instead the couple enlisted the help of their daughter, year-old Georgina Roberts, to give them poison.
Roberts said she was "motivated entirely by compassion and love … I'm a human being who loved my parents very deeply and wanted to help them when they couldn't help themselves. Currently, though, assisting a suicide is a criminal offence in England and Wales and carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.
That said, in guidelines from then director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer , said action against friends or relatives who assisted out of compassion, not for personal gain, would be unlikely. You shouldn't prosecute someone in those circumstances who is acting out of compassion.
He was paralysed from the neck down after suffering a stroke in and described his life as a "living nightmare". In July he lost a high court case to allow doctors to end his life.
In March , Hayley attracted the attentions of Stuart Leigh , a builder working on the Medical Centre development. Stuart kept popping into the cafe to see Hayley and they developed an innocent flirtation, with the understanding that nothing would happen due to Hayley being married.
However, having got wind of the relationship, Les Battersby told Stuart that Hayley used to be a man. Stuart then confronted Roy and Hayley in the cafe and called them freaks.
The following month, Hayley was promoted to supervisor at the factory, with responsibility for quality control. Hayley was determined to prove herself capable and challenged Gwen Loveday about her shoddy work. In September , having recently become closer to thirteen-year-old Sarah Platt and become godmother of her daughter Bethany , Hayley's thoughts turned to children and she suggested to Roy that they adopt.
Roy suggested fostering instead, as they would be able to help more children, and Hayley agreed. They successfully applied and were taken on as foster parents. However, their first experience with a foster child wasn't an official one - on Christmas Day , they caught Wayne Hayes stealing food from the cafe, having run away from home. He was collected by his stepfather Alex Swinton and eventually returned to the children's home.
The Croppers struck up an instant bond with Wayne, but although the quiet lad hadn't said why he ran away from home, as Alex left with Wayne, Roy saw him hit the boy through the cafe window. In January , the Croppers were accepted as foster parents and received their first foster child: Jackie Mosley , who stayed for two weeks while her mother was in hospital.
It being a big step for them, Hayley and Roy were very attentive and enthusiastic, much to Jackie's chagrin, but overall it was a pleasant experience for them. In April , they fostered Fiz Brown , a headstrong and somewhat rebellious young woman. Fiz tried her usual tricks to skive off school, only to be caught in the Corner Shop by Hayley when she was supposed to be ill. After setting the cooker on fire, Fiz was berated by Roy and retaliated by reporting him for hitting her.
The Croppers were relieved when they were informed that Fiz had done similarly before, and there would be no action taken. Fiz subsequently returned to the area after turning sixteen, where she enjoyed a far better relationship with the Croppers.
In the summer, Hayley encountered Wayne Hayes and his mother Sheila in the Kabin and brought them to the cafe for lunch. Wayne later returned and stayed the night, feeling safe with the Croppers. Roy and Hayley felt protective of Wayne and, when he confessed that Alex often lashed out at him and his mum, they decided to act and reported Alex to Peter Hartnell , their contact from Social Services.
However, when interviewed the Hayes family and Alex denied any abuse was taking place, and the Croppers were suspended from fostering for good measure. Refusing to give up on Wayne, Roy and Hayley implored Sheila to put her story straight, but she was too afraid of Alex even to admit the truth to them.
They then tried recording Alex confessing to being abusive, but he spotted the tape recorder and smashed it. Roy paid the money without Hayley's blessing, but although Sheila returned it, she agreed for Wayne to remain with the Croppers for the time being. While Wayne was staying with them, Roy and Hayley pretended to the neighbours that they were fostering him.
For a few weeks, they lived in fear of Alex, Social Services and the police, finding little comfort in the fact that they were doing it to protect Wayne. Eager to give Wayne a sense of normality, they agreed to go on a camping trip with Martin Platt , Sally Webster and their children, but they were tracked down by Alex, who had heard about Hayley's sexuality from Les Battersby.
With Alex threatening to call the police, the Croppers stole Martin's car and, taking with Wayne with them, sought refuge with Hayley's old friend Ruth Audsley in Warwickshire. A police search for the couple ensued, with the papers reporting them as kidnappers and painting Alex as a concerned stepfather.
In desperation, Hayley and Roy hatched a plan to catch a ferry to Ireland , before coming to their senses and opting to turn themselves in and put their faith in the British justice system. However, before they could do so, Ruth shopped them and they were taken into police custody, and Wayne was returned to his parents. After explaining the situation fully to the police, the Croppers were granted bail on the condition that they didn't have any contact with Wayne.
Furious that the police weren't investigating Alex, Hayley refused to accept her bail condition and was remanded in custody. Roy admired his wife's courage but advised her to change her mind as Wayne would understand them not visiting him under the circumstances. Hayley had a difficult time in prison, as the women in her block knew she was a transsexual and picked on her, but after a few weeks Sheila reported Alex to the police for beating her and Hayley was released, the charges against her and Roy dropped and Alex arrested.
In the wake of the Wayne incident, Peter Hartnell told the Croppers that their fostering suspension would be lifted, but the couple never fostered again. In July , Hayley went to visit her ill Aunty Monica. Just before she left, Hayley got into an argument with Tracy Barlow , standing her ground when Tracy made fun of her sexuality, although it revealed an insecurity in her that Roy didn't find her physically attractive.
Unbeknown to the Croppers, Tracy made a bet with Bev Unwin that she could bed Roy, in order to prove that she could have any man she wanted. Hayley then went to visit her family, and when she returned she was stunned when Roy told her he'd had sex with Tracy. According to Roy, he had got drunk at Peter and Shelley Barlow 's wedding reception and woke up the next morning in bed with Tracy.
He couldn't remember what had happened in between but Tracy was more than happy to fill in the blanks. While Roy was in a vulnerable state due to his grief over betraying Hayley, Hayley acted out in other ways, initially accusing Tracy of making the whole thing up, and then, after persuading Roy to fight for their marriage and not move out as he proposed, adopting a more feminine image, which was not to either of their liking. They seemed to be back on the road to normality when Tracy dropped a bombshell — she was pregnant, and Roy was the father.
Following Tracy's news, Hayley found it to hard to go on and decided to leave Roy and live in Amsterdam, his betrayal hurting all the more for the fact that it had given him the one thing she couldn't. However, when she caught Roy attempting suicide in the cafe flat, Hayley broke into the cafe and stopped him, forcing him to drink salt water and make himself sick. Her resolve changed, and Hayley decided to support Roy in stopping Tracy from going through with her plan to have the baby aborted.
The Croppers did not hesitate to pay up, although when Tracy went to the Caribbean with the money, they realised that she could afford to pay for an abortion in a private clinic and sought legal advice from Maya Sharma to find out how they stood. Maya suggested that Roy marry Tracy. A small Registry Office ceremony was arranged with Roy signing his assets over to Hayley beforehand in case Tracy tried to get hold of the cafe in the divorce.
A baby girl was born on 9th February , with Tracy stalling the Croppers for a few days before handing the baby over. All the pain they had gone through was forgotten as Hayley and Roy began a new life with their daughter, whom they named Patience Cropper. A week after the birth, Hayley was serving as a bridesmaid to Karen McDonald at her and Steve 's second wedding. In the middle of the ceremony, Tracy arrived and caused a scene by shouting for Roy, resulting in Steve having her ejected.
Tracy then announced to the entire congregation that her baby was in fact Steve's, and she never had sex with Roy at all. The Croppers fled from the wedding with Patience, but faced immediate pressure from the Barlows to give Tracy back the baby.
Initially considering fighting for Patience, the Croppers made a joint decision to give Tracy back her baby, while they faced the fact that the pain and anguish they went through in the last eight months was all for nothing. While Tracy felt no guilt over her treatment of the Croppers, Ken and Deirdre forced her to pay back the money and make the Croppers godparents to Patience, whose name was changed to Amy Barlow.
The Croppers even let Tracy off with paying some of the money in exchange for letting them baby-sit Amy, and when Roy's divorce came through in June , the Croppers celebrated their freedom from Tracy with a candlelit dinner. Chesney thought the Croppers would be a soft touch and laid it on with stories about how neglected he was at home.
They saw through his scheme but even their regular attentive method of parenting were beyond what Chesney was used to at home. A year later, they let homeless Craig Harris move into the flat after finding him living in squalor in the empty bakery next door. Enjoying making a difference to people's lives, Hayley decided to do voluntary work at the church, although restrictions were placed on her due to her being a transsexual and she was only allowed to work with ex-offenders.
While teaching a literacy class, Hayley came into contact with Becky Granger , with whom she had previously worked at Underworld. Becky had fled the area earlier that year, after framing Kelly Crabtree for robbing her friends at the factory. Hayley was wary of Becky's attempts to befriend her but, sensing something in her, decided to cut her a break and gave her a job at the cafe. With her troubled past, Becky's aggressive and thieving behaviour was a hard habit to break, but she was spurred on by her loyalty to the Croppers.
In September , Hayley was saddened to learn of her Aunt Monica's death. After the funeral, Hayley's Uncle Bert passed on to Hayley some letters addressed to her which Monica had held onto. The letters, authored by Hayley's old friend Cath, revealed to "Harold" the existence of his son.
Hayley felt compelled to track down her son and hired a private detective, who identified her son as Christian Gatley, manager of a record shop. Steeling herself, Hayley introduced herself to Christian, but for the moment she was too afraid to tell him who she really was.
At the same time, she came clean to Roy about her secretive behaviour of late, and her lie to him about being a virgin when they met. Roy found the situation difficult to accept, but agreed to stand by Hayley provided she was honest from now on.
Daunted by the prospect of telling Christian the truth, Hayley immediately broke her promise to Roy by telling Christian that she was his aunt and that his dad Harold was dead. Hayley enjoyed talking to Christian about Harold, but while she plucked up the courage to tell him the truth, her lies became more elaborate, much to Roy's disapproval, whose one piece of advice on the matter was that she couldn't build a meaningful relationship on a lie.
Meeting with Christian on the pretence of showing him where Harold's ashes were scattered, Hayley finally told Christian that she was Harold. Christian was weirded out by her revelation and punched Hayley when she ran after him, leaving her bleeding on the ground. Feeling Christian would have responded better if she had told him the truth in her own time, Hayley blamed Roy everything and went to stay with Becky, although once she'd calmed down she returned to Roy.
In October , Hayley was offered a place on a six-month volunteer project building a school in Mozambique. She left Weatherfield immediately, with Liam Connor agreeing to keep her job open at the factory. Hayley's volunteer work lasted longer than expected; she didn't return to the UK until November In that time, she'd fallen in love with Mozambique and its people, and in fact no sooner had she returned to Roy's side that she announced her intention to return and continue her work.
On hearing from her friend Tilly Eaves , with whom she had shared a tent in Mozambique, that their project leader Olaf was a womaniser, Hayley confessed to Roy that she had a crush on Olaf and he was part of the reason she wanted to return, but, coming to her senses, she opted to remain in Weatherfield and apologised to Roy for her heartless behaviour. Deciding not to return to the factory, Hayley continued with her volunteer work and helping Roy at the cafe. The Croppers' charity work included organising a Christmas lunch for the homeless at the cafe.
In May , Roy suggested to Hayley that they have a civil partnership, to improve their pension benefits. Hayley broached the possibility of having a legally-recognised wedding instead, as they had always intended to do once the law changed, but Roy opposed the idea because of the expense and his discomfort at expressing his feelings publicly.
The issue hung in the air for a few weeks until, frustrated with Roy's stiffness and insensitivity, Hayley went to stay with the Windasses. The Croppers were reconciled when Roy bought Hayley a salsa dress as a present. Their reunion was cemented when Hayley was taken hostage at the factory by a maniacal Tony Gordon, escaping after her fellow hostage Carla Connor appealed to Tony's better side and persuaded him to let Hayley go. Realising how close he came to losing Hayley, Roy got down on one knee and proposed marriage instead of a civil partnership, and Hayley accepted without hesitation.
With the help of Mary Taylor and her wedding dossier, Hayley set about planning her dream wedding. Fiz and Becky agreed to be bridesmaids, and Mary found the perfect venue: the Shawbrooke Country House Hotel , which had a function room overlooking the East Lancs steam railway. As a surprise for Roy, Hayley arranged for the wedding bus to stop at the train station and for Roy to drive a steam engine to the venue, with the bridal party in the rear carriage.
Hayley's hen night, planned by Becky, saw her blindfolded and led to the cafe, which had been transformed into a salsa bar, where Sean Tully had hired a friend to pose as a Latin lothario and salsa dance with Hayley. Initially helpful, Mary had railroaded Hayley into accepting her suggestions but Hayley had been too polite to tell her to back off. Mary realised she wasn't wanted when she didn't receive an invite to the wedding, and in revenge she disconnected the rear carriage, stranding the bridal party.
Commandeering a pump wagon, Fiz and Becky got the bride to the hotel in time, and Hayley and Roy were married legally. In April , Roy's mother Sylvia Goodwin turned up at the cafe demanding an explanation for Roy's no-show at her husband Roger 's funeral, in the process meeting Hayley for the first time. As a boy, Roy had found his mother cold and unsympathetic, and as an adult she still instilled fear in him. However, when Hayley discovered that Roger's death had left Sylvia bereft and living in a care home, she persuaded Roy to take her in.
Two months after her arrival, Sylvia's attentions turned to grandchildren. When she found Hayley's hormone drugs, Sylvia assumed she was going through the menopause and gave her an aloe vera plant to help her.
This drew the attention of Tracy Barlow, who let the cat out of the bag that Hayley was a transsexual. Sylvia was initially appalled but Roy rose to the occasion and made her feel ashamed for her gut reaction. Sylvia soon settled down and became an indispensable member of the Cropper family. In October , when Mary won tickets to the United States in a competition, she gave them to Roy and Hayley so that they could visit Sylvia, who was temporarily staying with her companion Milton Fanshaw in Palm Springs , California.
Hayley remained there longer than Roy, returning on 9th January They had to wait to make their union official as Hayley was born a man called Harold but had undergone gender reassignment surgery to become a woman. Jump directly to the content.
Sign in. All Football. Hayley's driving of the Croppers' precious Morris Minor was, like everything else to do with her, eccentric to say the least. They sat on the bed, legs outstretched, fully dressed, which didn't seem the most comfortable or romantic way to go. Her next speech was positively or negatively heart-breaking.
Thank you. Because I know what it is to be loved, truly loved. I love you. Always have, always will. Never exactly prone to merriment, now that he's lost his precious Hayley, poor Roy may never smile again. They had a cry and a cuddle and before Roy could stop her, she suddenly knocked back what looked like a glass of suspiciously bubbly glass of lemon squash.
When Anna and Carla burst in on them , Hayley was lying in Roy's arms, her face as white as a sheet and lips already with a tint of blue - in case anyone was in any doubt that she had popped what in her case would undoubtedly be her clogs. Moments earlier, the camera had panned across the room, tracking their possessions, or rather, Roy's, now. A photo from their wedding day, a picture of his mother Sylvia, a model steam train and its pump wagon, and finally his best shirt, the one Hayley had just ironed - for the funeral.
As for Hayley herself, presumably, hopefully, she will be buried in her red anorak. A nation sobbed as, unbeknownst to Fiz, Hayley said goodbye for the last time. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.
Argos AO. Headlines U. Privacy Policy Feedback. Hayley's suicide leaves Roy and the nation in tears. Share or comment on this article: Coronation Street's Hayley Cropper's suicide leaves Roy and nation in tears, writes Jim Shelley e-mail. Comments Share what you think. View all. Bing Site Web Enter search term: Search. How one supermarket is keeping pace with surge in demand for plant-based food Ad Feature Advertisement.
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