A MAN with advanced motor neurone disease has died after removing the oxygen mask he relied on to breathe.

John King, aged 77, from Sutton, near Tenbury Wells, died on Thursday (February 28) in a hospice.

He was diagnosed with the incurable disease 18 months ago and needed constant care.

In an interview with the BBC he said: "I think I'm at the right point in my life to make the decision. I have no issue with it at all."

He said removing his mask was not assisted suicide.

He said: "I've thought about this long enough. I live in this wheelchair. This is my life from the moment I've got out of bed in the morning.

"I have carers coming in to get me out of bed, shower me and dress me. It's all these silly little things that make you just feel so useless that you get to a point of saying what's the point of still being

alive?”

But Mr King said he did not want a change in the law in favour of assisted dying as it "could make people vulnerable to pressure."

The grandfather and father-of-two said he had planned his funeral with the help of a local celebrant and did not want a "dour affair," but a "celebration of his life."

Mrs Elaine King said of her husband: "No-one can blame him whatsoever. I see him 24/7, and how he is now to how he used to be and how he suffers. I don't have a problem."