Claim that Ruth Posner was coerced to attend suicide clinic is ‘appalling’, say her friends

Now another friend of Ruth Posner, Claire Hewitt, has told the JC that Pascal was wrong and that that the decision to attend the suicide clinic was made by the actress herself.

A group of friends who attended what they call “Ruth’s film club” together with the former actress also refuted the allegation by Pascal.

Hewitt, who met Posner several years ago at U3A – the University of the Third Age, which runs educational events for older people – pointed out that the actress’s book, The Third Stage of my Life, was dedicated to her husband, who is described as “an anchor” in her life.

Hewitt added that she and her friends wanted to “to amend previous unfounded comments” made about Posner.

“Ruth, while continuing to be fully engaged in life, often said that she would never want to be without Michael, that they would ‘depart this mortal coil’ together, and had quietly made those preparations,” she said.

A friend from U3A who wished to remain anonymous said she was “appalled by the words [...] control and coercion, and what they imply”, and that it was Ruth rather than Michael who initiated their path to the Pegasos clinic.

The friend, who has a terminal diagnosis, said she was consequently discussing medically assisted dying at the facility and gave Ruth information about Pegasos at the Posners’ home three years ago.

In her statement to the Times, Pascal had claimed: “I spent so many years with Ruth in rehearsal rooms and know how malleable she was. She would say ‘I can’t go on without him’ because she was dependent on him. He did all the cooking, the banking, paying the bills. She was totally reliant on him.

“They both said, ‘We have made up our minds, we don’t want to go gaga and we don’t want to go into an old people’s home’. I felt like it was not a decision of her own. She did not seem to have any resistance to him. He was the dominant personality and emotionally controlling.

“[Michael] had influenced her over the years. She would have said ‘it was all my decision’, but really he was making it for her.”

But another member of “Ruth’s film club”, Vera Peck, whose friendship with Posner dates back to 2016, said, “I read with utter disbelief the allegation that Ruth was coerced into taking her own life. There was absolutely no question of coercion. When I first met Ruth nine years ago, it was at a group discussion on assisted dying, which she attended on her own. We talked about it from time to time over the years right up to September 16, three days before they went to Switzerland. Contemplating her physical decline and shrinking ability in living actively, she used to say, ‘I don’t want to just exist.’”

She also said that Posner’s “enquiring mind came to its own opinions and she didn’t shrink from voicing them”.

One friend of more than 30 years, Tusse Silberg – a fellow actress whom Posner met at a yoga class over the road from their Belsize Park home – said the actress had told her about the couple’s decision to go to Pegasos to end their lives together “well over a year ago”.

“This choice seemed to become even stronger after Michael's weeks in hospital at the beginning of this year, which Ruth found unbearable and talked about her life as just about 'existing',” Silberg said.

“We adamantly contest the claim of coercion/control, which as well as besmirching Michael's character, plays into the hands of those opposed to medically assisted dying, which both Ruth and Michael supported.”

Another member of the film club, Gerda Kohn, said Ruth and Michael both spoke about assisted dying to her and her husband, a retired anaesthetist, and that their decision was not a surprise.

Kohn said: “I felt Ruth became more committed to going to Zurich as she got weaker towards the end. We last saw them on Friday September 12. We felt then they would be going very soon.”

In written tributes to the Posners, the friends praised Ruth and Michael’s “heart-warming” marriage, and fondly recalled their deep love and practice of the arts.

Julia Pascal told the JC she had no further comment to make.