Vanessa Feltz fights back tears as Dame Esther Rantzen's daughter gives devastating update about her

Vanessa Feltz fought back tears as Dame Esther Rantzen’s daughter Rebecca Wilcox gave a heartbreaking update on her mother’s cancer battle. 

The Childline founder, 83, was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer last year, and has since revealed she has joined the assisted-dying clinic Dignitas in Switzerland. 

Dame Esther has joined the call by campaigners for a change to the law on assisted dying in the UK and led a chorus of dismay after a much-anticipated report by MPs into assisted dying failed to deliver any clear-cut findings or proposals.

Appearing on Vanessa’s Talk TV show on Thursday, Rebecca, 44, said her mother’s ‘ideal death’ would be surrounded by her loved ones but due to UK laws she cannot be accompanied by her family to Switzerland. 

Under the law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland assisting suicide is punishable with up to 14 years in prison. There is no specific offence in Scotland.

Vanessa Feltz fought back tears as Dame Esther Rantzen ‘s daughter Rebecca Wilcox gave a heartbreaking update on her mother’s cancer battle

The Childline founder, 83, was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer last year, and has since revealed she has joined the assisted-dying clinic Dignitas in Switzerland

Rebecca said: ‘Vanessa this is impossible I have been fine with every other interview but because it is you and you are a friend of the family, I’m finding it hard to verbalize it. 

‘It is the question you can’t answer, as you know: “How is she?” as everybody knows who has experienced cancer. You are as good as your last scan and for the moment the miracle drug she is on is working and is a holding drug. 

‘The report which was clearly very thorough and sympathetic to everybody’s cause and spoke to a really wide range of society for people who have experienced it whose loved ones has done it, doctors, countries where it works and the interesting thing that I take away from it is the thing people worry about that palliative care will be degraded and that we will bring in euthanasia for those who just don’t want to carry on living. 

‘We are not talking about the mental health side of things. We are talking about a physical illness which has a terminal diagnosis where your life would end within around six months. 

‘It’s a question of saving people from a painful, undignified death.

‘Mum’s ideal death, my ideal death that I imagine, I share this with many people would be to be in bed surrounded by my loved ones.

‘Take a very gentle cocktail of whatever it may be, and I know I’m simply [saying] buying the medicine here, but then to gently drift off holding their hands. Who wouldn’t hold that?

‘Who instead would want to be in writhing agony for possibly months? How is it humane and progressive to think we are protecting people by not allowing them a painless, dignified death?’

Vanessa told viewers she found it ‘agonising’ talking about Esther’s cancer battle as she is so close to the family 

Rebecca, 44, said her mother’s ‘ideal death’ would be surrounded by her loved ones but due to UK laws she cannot be accompanied by her family to Switzerland

Vanessa has been friends with Dame Esther and the family for years (pictured in 2015 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show) 

Vanessa, who told viewers she a close friend of Esther’s, said before wiping away tears: ‘Rebecca, thank you very much, and give mummy all my love and a big kiss from me please.’

The inquiry, carried out by by the Health and Social Care Committee, was set up to provide ‘a basis for discussion’ into whether the law should be changed.

But the committee stopped short of calling for a House of Commons debate, which would have allowed MPs to thrash out their differences on existing legislation before holding a vote.

It instead recommended that the Government should consider how to respond if moves are made to bring assisted dying into law in parts of the UK.

Although currently illegal here, multiple crown dependencies – including Jersey and the Isle of Man – have taken steps towards legalising it.

Dame Esther said: ‘Many of us feel it is time this country caught up with the best practices abroad and the only way to achieve that is for a proper debate in Parliament with a free vote at the end of it.

‘I am profoundly disappointed that this report – which many of us have been waiting for – does not come up with that recommendation.

Esther previously revealed she had not expected to spend this Christmas with her family after being diagnosed with cancer, but a ‘miracle’ drug had given her additional time 

‘I am afraid in many ways it was a wasted opportunity. If they had said “we urgently need a Parliamentary debate and a free vote”, that could perhaps have fitted into my own timescale, but it doesn’t.’

Esther previously revealed she had not expected to spend this Christmas with her family after being diagnosed with cancer, but a ‘miracle’ drug had given her additional time with her loved ones.

She previously said she fears she could be accused of murder if she helps her seriously ill mother travel to Dignitas.

However, Dame Esther admitted such a decision would put her family and friends in a difficult position as they could be prosecuted should they decide to join her.

Rebecca told TalkTV: ‘It’s impossible, isn’t it, because I can’t even say to you, I would support my mum on her journey to Dignitas because if I said that, that’s legally murky.

‘Obviously, in my head, I would have thought that I would never let her go alone to somewhere like that, but I’m a busy working mum. I can’t leave my children to pop off to jail while she’s buzzing off to Switzerland.

‘The fact is only three people a year get prosecuted. But the actual process of going through a court case at what is the worst time of my life so far.

‘You know, mum is my person. I do not want to live without her. I will have to live without her and please, please don’t make it worse for me by accusing me of murdering her and making me go through what would be a terrifying legal process.’

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