June Brown as Dot Cotton in EastEnders / BBC
EastEnders legend June Brown enquired about assisted dying before her death in 2022, according to former co-star and close friend Lord Michael Cashman.
The actress – aka the iconic Dot Cotton on the BBC soap between 1985 and 2020 – died at the age of 95 in April 2022, with no cause of death given.
A proposed law to legalise assisted dying under certain circumstances in the UK has been passing through the Houses of Parliament but has stalled in the Lords, where peers tabled more than 1,000 amendments – including over 800 from just seven peers – in an effort to derail the bill.
With the parliamentary session about to end, the bill officially failed to become law on Friday due to the Lords’ delay – and the whole process will have to start from scratch again in the next session.
Cashman, who played Colin Russell on EastEnders in the ’80s, said in the Lords on Friday: “I also remember my dear friend June Brown, who implored me to get her to a country where she could die with dignity and the death that she wanted.”
Speaking previously during the debate on the proposed legislation, Cashman had said: “When my dear friend of many, many years suffered for months, she knew there was another way and she implored me to help her, my lords, I did.
“I was prepared to break the law as I contacted clinics in the Netherlands and Switzerland. However, it was to come to nothing.”
Cashman reprised his role as Colin for two episodes of EastEnders in 2022 for Dot’s funeral.
