Lesley Martin loses appeal

Voluntary euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin has lost her appeal against conviction for the attempted murder of her terminally ill mother.

The decision was delivered this morning at the Court of Appeal in Wellington.

Martin was jailed for 15 months in April last year by the High Court at Wanganui for attempted murder by injecting her mother, Joy Martin, 69, with 60mg of morphine in May 1999.

Mrs Martin later died.

Martin was released from Arohata Women's Prison in Tawa, four weeks ago after having served 7-1/2 months of her sentence.


The Court of Appeal also dismissed an appeal against the jail sentence.


The decision outlines details of the case from the beginning and contains dozens of points of criticism presented by Martin's lawyer, Donald Stevens, in an attempt to get the conviction and sentence ooverturned.


Many referred to apparent inconsistencies between Crown evidence and Martin's own accounts of her behaviour in her book To Die Like a Dog.


Appeal Court judges dismissed all of them and said the actions of Martin -- an experienced nurse -- were a deliberate attempt to take a life.


- NZPA