³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Sir Michael Caine has revealed how he asked a doctor to help his terminally ill father to die.

Maurice Micklewhite, a Billingsgate fish market porter, died in hospital at the age of 56 in 1955 after suffering from liver cancer.

Sir Michael said his father had been given four days to live when he made his request, which he kept secret from his mother who died in 1989.

Mr Micklewhite died shortly after his plea, Sir Michael told Classic FM

Sir Michael, the double Oscar winning-actor was given the same name as his father at birth, but changed it at the start of his career.

He told Classic FM: "My father had cancer of the liver and I was in such anguish over the pain he was in, that I said to this doctor, I said 'Isn't there anything else you could, just give him an overdose and end this', because I wanted him to go and he said 'Oh no, no, no, we couldn't do that.'

"Then, as I was leaving, he said 'Come back at midnight.' I came back at midnight and my father died at five past 12..."

Asked if he agreed with voluntary euthanasia, Sir Michael, 77, said: "Oh I think so, yeah.

"I think if you're in a state to where life is no longer bearable, if you want to go. I'm not saying that anyone else should make the decision, but I made the request, but my father was semi-conscious."

The 1961 Suicide Act makes assisted suicide an offence.

But Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, issued guidelines earlier this year which stated a person was unlikely to face prosecution if they acted out of compassion.