PROPOSED new laws to allow terminally ill patients to end their lives are “utterly inadequate” and pose a risk to public safety, a former president of the High Court’s family division warned yesterday.

Baroness Butler-Sloss said that safeguards in the Assisted Dying Bill offered vulnerable people “no real protection” from pressure or coercion by others and would put them in greater danger than the existing law.

The Bill, which is to be debated by MPs on Friday, would allow doctors to prescribe a lethal dose to terminally ill patients judged to have six months or less to live and who request it.

Assisted suicide is illegal under the Suicide Act 1961 and is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Baroness Butler-Sloss, in a letter to the Times, said: “The attempted safeguards contained in the Assisted Dying Bill are utterly inadequate and will not protect vulnerable individuals. I have serious concerns that the Bill, if passed, presents significant public safety risks.

“In my opinion, this Bill would place many elderly, ill or vulnerable people in significantly more danger than the current law.”