Teacher who handed his terminally ill father a Walther PPK pistol to kill himself on busy hospital ward is jailed
The son of a terminally ill patient who shot himself dead on a busy ward was jailed yesterday for three years after admitting smuggling the weapon into hospital.
A court heard that Ian Button, 63, had left his doting son Guy with a 'burden that is the stuff of tragedies' after asking him to bring in the Walther PPK handgun to the hospital.
Mr Button senior, a car rental manager, had decided to end his life days after being diagnosed with terminal lung disease. His wife Christine, also 63, was in a care home suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.
Their only child, a music teacher and talented tuba player, smuggled the Second World War-era pistol into the ward hidden in a leather bag during a morning visit last October.
Jailed: Guy Button, left, gave his father, Ian, a gun to kill himself in hospital
He returned to Northampton General Hospital that afternoon with 19 rounds of ammunition hidden in the same bag. His father, a gun collector, shot himself in the temple almost a fortnight later as his condition deteriorated.
He had pulled the curtains around his bed first but was only yards from other patients.
A ward sister discovered him still breathing but staff did not try to resuscitate him as he had asked not to receive CPR should he have a heart attack brought on by his illness.
The suicide was said to have caused considerable trauma to staff. Mr Button left a note for police in which he attempted to cover up for his son by claiming he had taken the gun into the hospital himself when he was readmitted the previous week.
Hidden weapon: A Walther PPK pistol similar to the one Button smuggled in give to his father
Suicide: Northampton General Hospital where Ian Button shot himself
Mr Button added in the brief note that he could not 'see a quality of life and cannot get any answers'. He added that he loved his family and was 'sorry for what I have done'.
Yesterday his son's barrister told Leicester Crown Court how the 30-year-old was having the 'greatest difficulty' coming to terms with the direct role he played in his father's death.
Luke Blackburn added: 'The late Mr Button felt he had no choice but to act as he did but constrained as he was he left his son with a burden that is the stuff of tragedies.
'He must have known that it was a truly grim proposition for his own son. For the rest of life he will know that it was by his hand and no other that his father received the means to kill himself.'
The court heard that Guy Button had pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited weapon and transferring it to his father, on the basis that he believed the Walther PPK had been deactivated and did not know his father meant to shoot himself.
Guy Button (far left) arrives at court in Leicester for his sentencing accompanied by family and friends
He faced a minimum five-year jail term for the offences and a maximum sentence of double that. But Judge Charles Wide QC ruled there were 'exceptional circumstances' which allowed him to reduce the minimum sentence.
He said Button was placed not in an 'impossible situation but a very difficult one', but added: 'It should be understood how serious this is. This was a working automatic handgun with live ammunition introduced into a public ward.'
The court heard that Button initially told police his father had asked him to bring the gun into the hospital because there was someone interested in antique firearms. But this was dismissed by the judge as a 'whopper' of a lie.
Judge Wide also queried a Crown Prosecution Service decision that there was ' insufficient evidence' to secure a conviction for assisting a suicide. That offence carries a maximum 14-year sentence.
Graham Reeds, prosecuting, had earlier told the court that Button, of Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, had been under immense strain about his parents' failing health.
Mr Button had been due to move to sheltered accommodation within the grounds of his wife's care home but was struggling to sell the couple's Northampton home, money from which he needed to pay their fees.
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