Michelle Jones
SEAN DAVISON walked through the gates at international arrivals at the Cape Town airport and crouched to scoop one of his young sons into his arms before kissing his partner, Raine Pan.
“No more tears,” Davison said to Pan, who had tears streaming down her face.
Davison, the UWC professor who helped his terminally ill mother die, returned home yesterday after serving five months’ home detention in his native New Zealand.
Pan and the couple’s young sons, Flynn, 3, and Finnian, who turns 2 today, had been waiting for Davison at Cape Town International Airport with a bouquet of brightly coloured flowers and cheery “welcome home” balloons.
After the family reunion at the gates, during which he handed toys to his children, Davison addressed the media.
“I’m thrilled to be back, obviously. Now I am a free man.
“At the same time, while I did my sentence, I was always free in my heart. I did my sentence, but I did not commit a crime.”
Yesterday marked the launch of a petition by DignitySA, a pro-euthanasia organisation of which Davison is an executive member, that calls for a bill to be brought before Parliament to legalise assisted dying in defined conditions.
“I will continue to campaign for a law change. I believe there is a lot of support in South Africa,” Davison said.
He said he looked forward to thanking Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who had written a letter as a character reference, in person for his assistance in saving him from serving time in jail.
Davison
went on trial in November after being arrested in New Zealand in 2010 on an attempted murder charge. In a book manuscript that was leaked, he said he had given his mother, Patricia Ferguson, 85, a lethal dose of morphine.
He was cleared of attempted murder after agreeing to plead guilty to the lesser charge of procuring the suicide of a terminally person.