Pretty on European court's priority list

A terminally ill British woman who is fighting for the legal right to be helped to die learnt yesterday that the European Court of Human Rights has given her case priority.

Diane Pretty, 43, who has motor neurone disease, is fighting for the right to commit suicide with the help of her husband. She lost her appeal to the law lords last year but the European Court at Strasbourg said British officials would be asked to respond to her application "as a matter of urgency".

Lawyers for Mrs Pretty, who is from Luton and has two children, argued that the Human Rights Act let her choose when to die and that for the Government to deny her that right in the face of such suffering was "inhuman and degrading".

Last November, five law lords ruled that the Act had no effect on a refusal by the Director of Public Prosecutions to guarantee her husband, Brian, freedom from prosecution. The maximum jail term for assisting a suicide is 14 years.

Mrs Pretty's condition has deteriorated since legal hearings began last summer. She is paralysed from the neck down, is fed through a tube and uses a computer to communicate.