London, England (CNN) — British police said Wednesday they have arrested a BBC television presenter on suspicion of murder after he told viewers he carried out a so-called mercy killing on a former lover.

Ray Gosling, 70, a freelance broadcaster, admitted on a BBC show aired in central England that he had smothered the unnamed partner in hospital where he was being treated for AIDS. Assisting in another person’s death is illegal in England.

Police in Nottinghamshire, 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of London, confirmed they had made an arrest after the apparent confession on the BBC’s “Inside Out” show.

Gosling made his admission in a taped segment of a 30-minute show about death, recounting how he smothered his partner to end his “terrible, terrible pain.”

He told viewers: “Maybe this is the time to share a secret that I have kept for quite a long time. I killed someone once.

“He was a young chap, he’d been my lover and he got AIDS.

“In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ and he was in terrible, terrible pain.

“I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead. The doctor came back and I said ‘He’s gone’. Nothing more was ever said.”

Gosling, who has not revealed details of his former lover’s identity or the exact date of the incident, insisted he was not “making a cause” of assisted dying.

In a BBC Radio interview he said: “Sometimes doctors do it on their own. Sometimes people do it on their own.”

“And if it happens to a lover or friend of yours, a husband, a wife, and I hope it doesn’t, but when it does sometimes you have to do brave things and you have to say – to use Nottingham language – bugger the law.”

Related posts:

1. 133 media workers killed this year — IFJ Source: AP BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — This year has been one of the worst on record for the deliberate killing of reporters and media staff, an international journalists’ association said Thursday. A total of 133 journalists and media personnel were killed in 2009, according to the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists. It said 109 were [...]...
2. JDF Officer and Girlfriend Denied Bail on Murder Charges A member of the Jamaica Defense Force and his girlfriend who are accused of killing their employee because he allegedly stole money from their restaurant were denied bail in the Corporate Area Criminal Court yesterday. Magistrate Georgiana Fraser denied the bail application for Private Kareem Campbell and his business partner, Nadine Moore after reading the [...]...
3. Homosexual man pleads to the court to discontinue wounding and assault case against his lover A homosexual man, whose eyes were gashed out by his lover last month, yesterday pleaded in vain with the court to discontinue legal proceedings against his companion Arthur McTaggart, who is facing charges of unlawful wounding and assault occasioning grievous bodily harm. But pleas by the complainant, Claude Pryce, fell on deaf ears as the [...]...
4. Identity of three killed in Ocho Rios cambio robbery still unknown The Police are yet to release the identities of three who were killed during the robbery of a cambio in Ocho Rios, St. Ann yesterday. The three were killed when they engaged the police in a shootout on Milford Road in the parish. The fourth man escaped. Information received by the CCN is that about [...]...
5. ‘A vicious act’ – Cop killed execution style in St Catherine By: Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer Residents of Southboro in Portmore, St Catherine, have reacted with a mixture of bafflement and dismay to the disturbing spectacle of a policeman’s body found, shot execution style, in his Toyota Hiace minibus in their community yesterday morning. Southboro, located near volatile Newlands and Naggo Head, has been hit [...]...