Lynn Afotey-Otu was sentenced in Pine Rivers Magistrates Court after bringing forward her appearance date for importing the border-controlled drug Pentobarbital, branded Nembutal. Source: CourierMail
A CHILDCARE director of the year has been placed on probation after pleading guilty to importing lethal drugs promoted for euthanasia in the first known case of its kind in Queensland.
Lynn Afotey-Otu was sentenced in Pine Rivers Magistrates Court after bringing forward her appearance date for importing the border-controlled drug Pentobarbital, branded Nembutal.
The drug is a sedative and anaesthetic but euthanasia advocate Exit Australia director Dr Philip Nitschke has promoted Nembutal as the best and most peaceful way to end a life.
Ms Afotey-Otu, 61, twice awarded the Queensland Early Childhood Director of the Year in the Australian Family Early Education Care Awards, was charged in May after Customs officials seized vials of the drug in the mail which had been ordered online.
Nembutal is commonly sold in Mexico for about $500.
Appearing in court as Lynn Denise McGuinness, the Dayboro woman was placed on a two-year good behaviour bond and 12 months’ probation. No conviction was recorded.
She was originally meant to appear in court today.
When contacted by The Courier Mail she declined to comment about the matter.
Dr Nitschke said it was positive the courts had dealt with the case in a “measured, compassionate and humane way”.
“On the other hand the whole business of having police involvement has still sent a chill across the elderly folk of the nation,” he said.
“These are people who have generally not being law breakers, this is their first crime and they are carrying it out in their elderly years.
“That’s why the law in the current state is not very satisfactory.”
Dr Nitschke said there had been a number of people who had their drugs intercepted in the past but not any court cases for people importing the drug into Australia by mail.
Queensland Teacher Merin Nielsen, 50, was the first in the state to be convicted of aiding a suicide after he travelled to Mexico and bought Nembutal for friend Frank Ward, 76, who died in 2009.
In 2012 he was sentenced to six months’ jail.