Scottish police are investigating the actions of a GP after he confessed to assisting the suicide of a number of 
patients.
GP Dr Iain Kerr says he prescribed particular drugs and gave advice to some of his patients who wanted to end their own lives. The cases included supplying sleeping pills to an elderly couple who were not terminally ill but who wanted to end their life together, the Herald newspaper reports.
Dr Kerr, who worked at Williamwood Medical Centre in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire, has previously been interviewed by the procurator-fiscal, who took no further action.
The Crown Office confirmed police will now work to establish if any new evidence is available. The 66-year-old GP said he would be very happy to co-operate with further police investigations.
A Crown Office spokesman said: “We have instructed the police to make inquiries into whether there is any new evidence available. Any new evidence will be considered by Crown Counsel.
“There is no crime of assisted suicide in Scotland, where, depending on the particular facts and circumstances of the case, the law of homicide may apply. Any change in the law related to homicide is properly a matter for the Scottish Parliament.”
Dr Kerr was suspended for six months in July 2008 after appearing before the General Medical Council on charges including prescribing sleeping tablets to a patient so she could end her life.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde ruled in 2008 that he could continue working for it. In August 2010, all restrictions on his ability to practise were removed by the GMC.
Margo MacDonald, a Scottish Nationalist member of the Scottish Parliament set to publish a bill legalising assisted suicide, offered her support to Dr Kerr.
She praised him as “brave and caring”, saying: “He has been a good physician, giving patients as much expected, conventional care for as long as he treated them and as long as they wanted it.
“At the end he allowed them to exercise their own choice about their death. He helped them, in some cases, achieve a peaceful death. I don’t think anyone could be more caring than that.”
A previous bid to legalise assisted suicide was defeated in 2011, when MSPs voted against the End of Life Assistance Bill by 85 to 16 with two abstentions.The new Bill was announced in January last year and a consultation drew strong opposition.
Meanwhile, a British GP nicknamed Dr Death because he helped take people to an overseas euthanasia clinic is to set up a suicide support group called “Die-alogue”.
Retired doctor Michael Irwin is launching what is thought to be the UK’s first suicide support group, which will share advice on euthanasia, the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas and end-of-life care.
Dr Irwin, who is retired, said he hoped members would help each other travel abroad to commit suicide, if necessary.
“The topic of rational suicide should be discussed, he said. “I want people to provide one another with financial, moral and emotional support. People could support each other by travelling abroad to the Dignitas clinic.
“Sometimes the person who wants to go to Dignitas has no one to help them. This group would aim to help that.
Dr Irwin said that if a person wanted to end their life because of a terminal illness or they were in great pain then this should be legal and their families and friends should not be prosecuted for helping them.
Dr Irwin said: “Some people want to stay alive – they want all the care they can receive – whereas others do not.
“This group would help people make these decisions while they can.”
Dr Irwin has also been in contact with an 83-year-old not from Sussex, who has dementia and wants to travel to Dignitas to end his life.
If he goes he will be the first known Briton suffering from the condition to go to the suicide clinic.
In 2011 Dr Irwin revealed how a 91-year-old from Eastbourne had contacted him asking about Dignitas. He did not take her to Switzerland. Sussex Police officers interviewed – but did not arrest – him.
Dr Irwin said he would “not cooperate” with police if officers asked who the people who went to Dignitas were. He said then: “This is the first time I have not fully co-operated with police.”
A Sussex Police spokesman said the force was not in a position to comment.