Ray Gosling 'named mercy killing lover to police'

BBC presenter Ray Gosling disclosed today that he has told police the name of the lover he confessed to killing.

Gosling, 70, was arrested on suspicion of murder last week after revealing in a TV programme that he smothered a former partner as he lay in a hospital bed dying of Aids.

Following repeated questioning by detectives over 30 hours in custody he was released on bail until April, but only after naming the man he killed.

Gosling told the Nottingham Evening Post today: "If I'd not told them who it was, I'd still be locked up now."

The presenter said he would not disclose the identity of his lover to anyone other than the police in order to protect his family, telling the paper: "It was a private love affair."

Gosling, a freelance TV and radio presenter from Nottingham, broke down during his shock confession to BBC East Midlands' Inside Out programme last week.

He said: "I killed someone once. He was a young chap, he'd been my lover and he got Aids.

"In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said 'There's nothing we can do', and he was in terrible, terrible pain.

"I said to the doctor 'Leave me just for a bit' and he went away. I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead.

"The doctor came back and I said 'He's gone'. Nothing more was ever said."

Gosling told the Nottingham Evening Post he had not expected all the publicity that has followed the broadcast of the programme.

But he added: "I don't regret saying what I did on the television. The BBC didn't use me. They let me decide what I wanted to say. They told me the risks of doing it."

Aiding or abetting another person's death is illegal in England and Wales under the 1961 Suicide Act, and is punishable by up to 14 years in jail.

If Gosling was convicted of murder, he would face a mandatory life sentence.