Justice
NZ-born Sean Davison had a stockpile of fake and duplicate passports ready so he could avoid a long prison sentence for aiding and abetting the suicides of three severely disabled men
“Yes, I got a fake passport,” admits Sean Davison. “It’s pretty easy to do in South Africa. It does make me look like a hardened criminal, but you have to appreciate the conditions in South Africa.”
The New Zealander talks to Newsroom about completing a three-year sentence of home detention. It was served at the home where he, his wife Raine and their three children live in Pinelands, Cape Town. Since serving his first detention in New Zealand for assisting in the suicide of his cancer-stricken mother, Davison has become an international campaigner for the right to die with dignity. I counted Archbishop Desmond Tutu among his friends and supporters. But it came at a price that sometimes seemed too overwhelming for him and his family.
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“Many highly respected people have advised me to skip the country to avoid jail. I have seriously considered leaving,” he says. “I was charged with premeditated murder that imposed a mandatory life sentence – there was no hope of avoiding jail time, especially with three such charges.
“South African prisons are notoriously violent, dangerous places – nothing like a prison in New Zealand. People who spend time in a South African prison do not come out the same person they went into. The prospect of imprisonment here was a horrible one. “
In the end, he believes it was the prospect of summoning Archbishop Tutu to court that persuaded the Crown Prosecutors to settle with a lesser sentence of home detention. The defense and prosecution discussed the possibility that Tutu, who died last year, was technically complicit because he corresponded with Davison about the New Zealander’s published, planned involvement in the death of Justin Varian.
Varian, 52, who was almost completely incapacitated by motor neurone disease, died using a bag of helium. Davison admitted his involvement in Varian’s deaths, and those of Anrich Burger and Richard Holland, who were both seriously injured in road accidents.
South Africa does not have a charge of assisted suicide on its law books, so Davison has been charged with the murder of all three men – but no one else has been charged. Davison entered into a plea agreement to accept murder charges and avoid a jail sentence.
Last night, after three years of detention in the house, Davison came out of the high court to a bunch of international media. He spoke on the steps of the court. “I did my time. But I did not commit a crime,” he told them.
“It is no longer about me. It’s about the fact that other people will find themselves in the same position I was in. “It’s about other people finding themselves in the same position as the three men I helped die.”
However, the attention of the police and the courts has long been focused entirely on Davison – and he feared that he would be sentenced to life in prison because he could not see his children – Flynn, Finnian and Fia – growing up. And he was worried that the court could withdraw his bail at any time and bring him into custody.
He has therefore put in place contingency plans to allow him to skip the country on short notice, he tells Newsroom. One friend offered him the use of his sea-yacht; others suggested crossing the mountainous border into Lesotho.
“With my wife’s agreement, I did consider it, and I did plan how to do it. I would leave Lesotho, a country surrounded by the country within South Africa’s borders, which is an international airport. has.
“It must be shocking for people in New Zealand to think I would consider doing that, but if they had a concept of a South African prison, they would probably understand.”
“If I had been arrested and charged with the same offense in New Zealand, I would not have accepted a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to murder, but would have tried. I believe a New Zealand court would not have convicted me of murder. do not have.”
Davison was ordered to hand over his NZ and South African passports to the police and, he says, by implication not to apply for new ones. His new book, The price of gracedescribes a dream series in which he obtains a false passport to cross the border into Lesotho.
“I am amazed at how easy it was to get a fake passport. I suppose I should not now focus on how this country is drowning in corruption, from the government. To achieve this, I just have to mix between the dull characters hanging around outside the Department of Home Affairs in Barrack Street in downtown Cape Town. It doesn’t take too many questions before I hook up with the right person, and by the end of the day, I have it. Note, it does not come cheap. I think the cost is probably determined by how desperate you look (they had me on that). Regardless of the cost, this document is invaluable and can become my lifeline from here. ”
He says he really got that fake South African passport. He also discloses a New Zealand passport he could obtain online by claiming he lost his existing Kiwi one, “which was in fact confiscated by the police”.
Now, at the end of his detention sentence, Sean and Raine decide where they are going to live. Although Davison is still a professor at the University of the Western Cape, who has supported him throughout, the family no longer feels safe in South Africa.
One police officer told him they were investigating further charges.
Davison denies that: “I have been convicted of three murders, and have served my sentence. I will not be charged with murder again in South Africa, or anywhere in the world.”
Nevertheless, the family wants to move elsewhere.
“Having a family and trying to change the world doesn’t always go together. It was hard for the family,” says Davison. “I would prefer a normal life with my children, but I want to be able to live with myself when I am there, and not be ashamed of what I did not do, to help those three men.
“I want to leave South Africa. We have already started a new life in Australia, and was considering moving to New Zealand when I was arrested in South Africa. Now, with a murder conviction I may not Australia “and with my conviction for professional misconduct in New Zealand I will struggle to find work there. The options for the future are very limited, now I am a convicted murderer.”
Davison still loves New Zealand, even though he was deregistered by the Medical Sciences Council because of his beliefs. “My feelings for New Zealand could never be soured,” he said.
“I was born in Auckland, spent almost my entire childhood in Hokitika, and nine years in Dunedin studying for my PhD – New Zealand is in my blood and I will always love the place.”
But he will not move his family to New Zealand. “The reason I did not return is the extreme difficulty of ever getting a job there with a conviction for professional misconduct. My sister Jo, a teacher, said I would not even get a job doing maths. or science in a secondary school in NZ. conviction. “
He was upset that he had been deregistered, saying it had undermined his confidence in New Zealand’s medical fraternity to provide justice to the needs of those seeking their help to die under the new Life Choice Act.
“I think there is a great danger that the doctors will make the new law very restrictive,” he says. “Doctors do play an important role in implementing the new law, but there are serious questions about the influence they have. Especially a psychiatrist’s ability to make an objective assessment of a person’s mental ability. Often the fact that a person wants to end their life leads to a medical assumption that they are not mentally competent.
“I do feel that New Zealand has the law about right, but it can be improved,” he added. “We have to look at the role of doctors in the process.
“We need to look closely at the issue of mental illness, where people are excluded from the option of assisted death in NZ. There are mental illnesses where the person is perfectly mentally competent to decide on their suffering, and whether their life is worth living. “Sometimes a depressed person can make a more rational decision than a happy person.”
Helpline services are currently available in New Zealand providing support, information and assistance for you and your parents, family, whānau and friends. All the services listed here are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, unless otherwise specified.
►Do you have to speak? Free call or SMS 1737 anytime for support from a trained counselor.
► Lifeline – 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP).
► Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO).
► Health Line – 0800 611 116
► Samaritan – 0800 726 666