Martin threat to expose 'perjury' of witnesses

Lesley Martin says she wants to pursue legislative change to help the terminally ill make decisions about the end of their lives. Picture / Amos Chapple

Euthanasia advocate Lesley Martin says if a fresh trial were held into her conviction for attempting to murder her ill mother she would consider giving evidence to expose witnesses she claims perjured themselves.

Ms Martin and her lawyers are to study the Court of Appeal's dismissal yesterday of appeals against both her conviction and jail sentence before deciding if they will take the case to the Supreme Court.

She would not say who might not have told the truth during her trial.

Ms Martin, who chose not to give evidence at her trial, was released from jail in December after being found guilty of attempting to murder her dying mother Joy in 1999 by injecting her with morphine.

Three Appeal Court justices said Ms Martin's case was not one of a person "driven to the depths of anguish and despair, acting impulsively and with greatly diminished responsibility".

"It is a case of a professional nurse acting deliberately.

"Her stance ... has been equivocal, depending on whether her audience is public or judicial. But in the end it is a case of a deliberate taking of a life."

Asked what she thought of the judges' comments, Ms Martin said they should read her book.

However the judges said her book, To Die Like A Dog, in which she described her mother's last days and her actions, provided evidence of what she had done.

"In her book, which now must be accepted as essentially true, the appellant (Lesley Martin) says she deliberately injected her mother with a potentially lethal dose of morphine, in order to kill her, at a time when her mother was deeply unconscious," the judgment said.

The Court of Appeal said Ms Martin had not recanted her admissions or her description of them - including in her book - as true, despite her defence being that they were not the truth or that they were unreliable.

"It is difficult to imagine a case where an accused has made so many deliberate, repetitive, detailed, private and public admissions of conduct carried out in the knowledge of its criminality."

Justices Noel Anderson, John McGrath and Mark O'Regan said it was Ms Martin's right not to give evidence.

Although they found there were two instances where the trial judge's summing-up might be criticised, that had not led to a miscarriage of justice. The judges also said some aspects of the appeal were "quibbles".

Lawyers for Ms Martin, when appealing against her sentence, said the conviction would significantly impact on her ability to travel internationally as a euthanasia advocate.

The Court of Appeal said the trial evidence was that Ms Martin was not an advocate for euthanasia when she attempted to murder her mother, but had become one.

Ms Martin said yesterday she had distanced herself from Australia's voluntary euthanasia campaigner, Dr Philip Nitschke.

She said she wanted to pursue legislative change to help the terminally ill who wished to make end-of-life decisions.

She said Dr Nitschke's "peaceful pill" was too dangerous.