BUSINESSMAN John King has set his own appointment with death.

The 77-year-old from Stoke Bliss, near Bromyard, says that he will end his suffering nearly three years after being diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease.

He has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the wasting illness that is incurable and progressive.

Mr King hopes that by doing this his legacy will be to help to bring about a cure for the disease that progressively kills the mechanism that allows the brain to communicate with the muscles.

“I have just had enough,” said Mr King, a former adviser to the Chamber of Commerce in Hereford, a former business columnist on the Hereford Times and chair of Young Enterprise in Herefordshire.

But Mr King does not want a change to the law to legalise assisted suicide.

“I believe that this would make people vulnerable to pressure,” said Mr King who has been taken to a health facility that he has not named.

He will be made comfortable and relaxed and at a time of his choosing says that he will remove the mask that he needs to breathe.

Instructions not to attempt to resuscitate him have been signed.

The advice is that he may die in as little as two minutes after removing the mask and half an hour at most.

“I want to do this now while I still have the strength to remove the mask myself,” said Mr King, who lost his first wife to cancer and has himself had prostate cancer. He says his present wife Elaine; two daughters and grandson understand.

“Believe me, I have thought about this constantly over the last six months or so. I spend hours thinking and debating this question over and over in my head, night after night as I spend the 12 or 13 hours that I am forced to spend in my bed, between the carers getting me out of bed each morning and putting me back into bed each night.

“There are times during the day when I could easily pull the trigger. The draining of whatever energy I had makes me wish that I were dead.

“It takes away your ability to be independent. It is a very cruel and debilitating disease. You become locked within your own body, unable to do anything for yourself.

“I am sure that some will say, that only ‘God’ has the right to call us to his side. If that was the case, then I wouldn’t be here todayI have had to use a machine 24 hours a day, to provide me with air so that I can receive the oxygen from that air. I have had to accept nutrition 24 hours a day artificially.

“So now I have decided that enough is enough!