A heartbroken daughter said she had to watch her elderly dad die like "a tortured animal" and has called for an inquiry into assisted dying.

Jo Bucklow, 60, from Gedling, witnessed her father, Ian Bucklow, 94, suffer a painful death from terminal prostate cancer in the summer of 2019.

Mrs Bucklow, a shiatsu practitioner, said she believes that had assisted dying been an option for terminally ill adults then he wouldn't have gone through seven days of torture leading up to his death.

Her dad - who flew Spitfires in World War II and was also responsible for visiting crash sites of RAF pilots - was described as "a very brainy, academic type" and was a teacher up until the point he got really sick in 2018.

The cancer had spread to his lungs and he was sent from a hospital to a hospice for his end of life care.

But when the medication failed to stablise him, Mrs Bucklow said she was forced to watch him die painfully rather than peacefully.

She said: "The hospice was amazing.

"On one Sunday night, he was chatty, normal and pretty awesome and then I came back on the Monday morning and he was in an absolutely appalling state.

"He was thrashing around. We had to hold him down while the medication took effect.

"But the medicine did not work. He showed constant signs of distress and looked like a tortured animal. You could not believe that is legal.

"If I did that to my dog I would be prosecuted. Assisted dying could have been there to help my dad. There was no peace at all.

"He had the most wonderful life but the worst death imaginable."

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She added: "My dads carers would continue to up the dose of drugs he was on but it never seemed to be enough to make him comfortable or alleviate his suffering.

"My dad was still conscious when began to gasp for breath, and kept displaying signs of distress up until his death. It must have been utterly torturous for him.

"I have been present at the death of other people, and in comparison, my fathers suffering as he died was traumatising.

"It was the most horrific thing I have ever witnessed and I am still recovering from the experience."

Both euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal under English law.

She said assisted dying would give terminally ill people another option when their pain at the end of life cannot be managed or tolerated any further.

"It is unspeakably cruel that we deny dying people this choice and an inquiry into the ban on assisted dying is urgently needed," she added.

Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said: "The coronavirus pandemic has made all of us confront our own mortality.

"We have had to come to terms with a sense of powerlessness, fear, and anxiety over an uncertain future. We have been shocked at how some have died from Covid-19: frightened; isolated; feeling like doctors are making decisions for them, not with them. But this is precisely what terminally ill people already face under the UKs ban on assisted dying.

"Our dying citizens are denied choice and control at a time they need it most and are instead forced to resort to drastic measures which often leave them dying in secret, alone, terrified and in pain.

"And what were already limited options fraught with risk and stress, such as travelling to Dignitas, have been made even more so by current restrictions.

"As we begin to emerge from the worst of this pandemic, the time is now for a grown-up conversation about the fact we are getting dying wrong in this country, and how we can at last fix our broken laws."

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Heartbroken daughter had to watch dad die like 'a tortured animal' - Nottinghamshire Live