Murdered: Christiane Remacle was savagely beaten and raped, and her clothes had been ripped off, apart from one of her stockings . For the family of 19-year-old Christiane Remacle, the unending torment began on New Year’s morning 25 years ago. Entering their daughter’s room to wish her seasonal greetings and ask about the party she’d attended the night before, her parents found her bed empty and undisturbed. As Christiane had never stayed out overnight without telling them, they immediately sensed something was wrong. But when they tried to find out what had happened to the teenager — a pretty, bright girl who was ‘the apple of their eye’, according to her older sister, Annie — her friends were baffled. They’d last seen her setting off to walk home, they said. It was not until mid-January of that year, 1989, that the grim truth emerged. A police search had failed to find Christiane, but her body was discovered by a hunter, in a forest close to the party venue, in Antwerp, Belgium. She had been savagely beaten and raped, and her clothes had been ripped off, apart from one of her stockings. The other, which had been used to strangle her, was still wrapped around her neck. There was one obvious suspect. Then 25, Frank Van Den Bleeken had already committed a string of serious sexual offences, yet thanks to Belgium’s scandalously lenient justice system, he had been freed from jail and was prowling his old haunts again. Desperate to keep his liberty, he denied the murder, and it was only when he was confronted by his mother that he confessed. Cunning as ever, Van Den Bleeken convinced a judge he was insane, and was sent to a secure institution — a decision which satisfied Christiane’s family, since they believed he would be locked away for many years. Disgracefully, the burly sex fiend was freed after just seven years, whereupon he brutally attacked three more victims within a few weeks (one was just 11 years old) before, finally, he was locked away indefinitely. This was in the mid-Nineties. Since then, Christiane’s parents, Gustaaf and Mary, have both died, effectively killed by their grief, their family believes. But Van Den Bleeken, 50, has also been suffering — at least, that is, if we believe his lawyers. Unable to escape his overwhelming predatory urges, and denied the psychiatric treatment that might help him, they say, he has endured terrible mental anguish at the prospect of being trapped with his thoughts for ever. Controversial: Van Den Bleeken's lawyers argue that the 50-year-old has also been suffering in jail . Indeed, they have been arguing in the Belgian courts for the past three years that so unbearable is his existence that he ought to be allowed to end his life — or rather, have doctors end it for him, by a lethal injection — under the country’s liberal euthanasia law. It is rather like Ian Huntley, say, or Rosemary West, asking a British judge for the right to die because they could no longer tolerate life inside their top-security prisons. Just imagine the outcry among both the public and their victims. Remember the furore when Ian Brady tried recently to win permission to move from a secure hospital to prison, so that he could starve himself to death without being stopped by staff. In Belgium, however, as in neighbouring Holland, whose dubious moral and ethical values have permeated across the border, they do things very differently from the rest of Europe. Unlike the assisted dying bill being proposed in Britain, which would give terminally ill people the right to end their lives, and only in the rarest of circumstances, the rules in the Lowland countries are considerably more lax. ‘Unbearable suffering’ is the vague yardstick by which it is permitted. Recently, Belgium even sanctioned euthanasia for children, and last year more than 1,800 people were granted permission to commit suicide — a 27 per cent increase on 2012. Thus, to the disbelief of Christiane’s surviving relatives, this week her killer’s death-wish was finally granted. In ghastly contrast to the suffering he caused his victims and their loved ones, Van Den Bleeken’s end will be pain-free and quick. Early next week, when the final legal formalities have been completed, he will be allowed to spend two days saying his goodbyes to family and friends. Then, in a pleasant hospital room, he will be sent into an everlasting sleep. ‘The process is very simple,’ says a source close to the case. ‘There is no question of any pain. Chemicals are injected into the body, creating a feeling of relaxation, then he will drift into unconsciousness and life will stop. It is utterly humane.’ Van Den Bleeken is in a secure unit in Bruges with some 150 other patients, and his lawyer told the Mail last night: ‘It is unbearable for him. He hears the other patients shouting and crying all day and night, and cannot live with it. ‘He knows he could live for another 30 years — he’s in a good physical state, but his mind is dead. He has stopped walking, as he used to do, and just sits in his cell all the time. He does, however, go to mass once a week. He has become very religious. Plea: It is rather like Ian Huntley (right) or Rosemary West (left), asking a British judge for the right to die because they could no longer tolerate life inside their top-security prisons . ‘He knows he’s made mistakes and in his own mind he doesn’t deserve to be alive.’ The Antwerp-born killer hails from a traditional Belgian working-class Roman Catholic family, an irony given the Catholic Church’s strong opposition to euthanasia. He claims he, too, was raped, when he was 15. Of course, there will be some in Britain who take a cynical view of Van Den Bleeken’s victory. They will point out that there are 11,500 sex offenders in our prisons: one in eight of all inmates. The cost of keeping them off the streets is more than £50,000 per prisoner: a staggering £575 million. If they are really so keen to expunge themselves, why not let those who are seeking an easy way out of their punishment do the taxpayer a favour? Yesterday, however, campaigners on either side of the debate were almost universal in their condemnation of the decision to allow Van Den Bleeken to end his life when he chooses. Christiane Remacle's family can barely believe that Van Den Bleeken (pictured) has been spared a possible 30 or 40 more years of incarceration . According to Dan Boucher, director of parliamentary affairs for the Christian charity CARE, which opposed the UK bill, it proves that, having opened the doors to assisted suicide 12 years ago, Belgium has already slid dangerously far down the slippery slope. Indeed, during the 24 hours since the Van Den Bleeken judgment was handed down, at least 15 more Belgian prisoners have lodged right-to-die requests with the country’s Federal Euthanasia Commission, and many more are expected to follow. ‘Once a country embraces the culture of death with its laws, then it’s not surprising that legality should start to widen the categories of people who can access it,’ Dan Boucher told me. ‘If we allow a sex offender to end his life, then who comes next?’ Who indeed. The respected medical ethicist Dr Helen Watt puts it this way: ‘We should never agree with a suicidal prisoner, or any other suicidal person, that his life is not worth living. Those who are rightly being punished for their crimes should receive proper health care, and their doctors should not be co-opted for procedures that are the very reverse of healthcare. ‘This is not capital punishment, but is billed as a “medical procedure” based on the prisoner’s low sense of self-worth. It is a clear sign of the slippery slope in euthanasia.’ Dr Iain Brassington, meanwhile, a senior lecturer in bioethics at Manchester University Law School, takes a different view. He says the issue hinges largely on whether society sees the purpose of prison as retribution or rehabilitation, and whether a prisoner committing suicide could truly be said to be ‘cheating justice’. Those who have suffered at Van Den Bleeken’s hands have no truck with such intellectual debate. Though his lawyer portrays him as remorseful, and attributes his personality disorder to a disturbed childhood which saw him placed in care at six, they can barely believe that he has been spared a possible 30 or 40 more years of incarceration. ‘Commissions, doctors and other “experts” have all investigated the highs and lows of our sister’s killer,’ Annie Remacle said yesterday. ‘And during all these years, not a single commission has examined the case of our parents’, or ours. ‘Not a single doctor or expert has asked us how we are. Now his lawyers say how much their client suffers! Well, we are suffering, too.’ Quite so, and for all those who loved the pretty young woman who went to a New Year’s party and never returned, there is no easy escape from the agony. Additional reporting: PETER ALLEN .
Frank Van Den Bleeken confessed to the murder of Christiane Remacle .
The 50-year-old also committed a string of sexual offences in Belgium .
He was locked away indefinitely but claims he has been suffering mentally .
Argues anguish is so unbearable that he should be able to end his own life .
This week the killer's death wish was finally granted .
Murdered: Christiane Remacle was savagely beaten and raped, and her clothes had been ripped off, apart from one of her stockings . For the family of 19-year-old Christiane Remacle, the unending torment began on New Year’s morning 25 years ago. Entering their daughter’s room to wish her seasonal greetings and ask about the party she’d attended the night before, her parents found her bed empty and undisturbed. As Christiane had never stayed out overnight without telling them, they immediately sensed something was wrong. But when they tried to find out what had happened to the teenager — a pretty, bright girl who was ‘the apple of their eye’, according to her older sister, Annie — her friends were baffled. They’d last seen her setting off to walk home, they said. It was not until mid-January of that year, 1989, that the grim truth emerged. A police search had failed to find Christiane, but her body was discovered by a hunter, in a forest close to the party venue, in Antwerp, Belgium. She had been savagely beaten and raped, and her clothes had been ripped off, apart from one of her stockings. The other, which had been used to strangle her, was still wrapped around her neck. There was one obvious suspect. Then 25, Frank Van Den Bleeken had already committed a string of serious sexual offences, yet thanks to Belgium’s scandalously lenient justice system, he had been freed from jail and was prowling his old haunts again. Desperate to keep his liberty, he denied the murder, and it was only when he was confronted by his mother that he confessed. Cunning as ever, Van Den Bleeken convinced a judge he was insane, and was sent to a secure institution — a decision which satisfied Christiane’s family, since they believed he would be locked away for many years. Disgracefully, the burly sex fiend was freed after just seven years, whereupon he brutally attacked three more victims within a few weeks (one was just 11 years old) before, finally, he was locked away indefinitely. This was in the mid-Nineties. Since then, Christiane’s parents, Gustaaf and Mary, have both died, effectively killed by their grief, their family believes. But Van Den Bleeken, 50, has also been suffering — at least, that is, if we believe his lawyers. Unable to escape his overwhelming predatory urges, and denied the psychiatric treatment that might help him, they say, he has endured terrible mental anguish at the prospect of being trapped with his thoughts for ever. Controversial: Van Den Bleeken's lawyers argue that the 50-year-old has also been suffering in jail . Indeed, they have been arguing in the Belgian courts for the past three years that so unbearable is his existence that he ought to be allowed to end his life — or rather, have doctors end it for him, by a lethal injection — under the country’s liberal euthanasia law. It is rather like Ian Huntley, say, or Rosemary West, asking a British judge for the right to die because they could no longer tolerate life inside their top-security prisons. Just imagine the outcry among both the public and their victims. Remember the furore when Ian Brady tried recently to win permission to move from a secure hospital to prison, so that he could starve himself to death without being stopped by staff. In Belgium, however, as in neighbouring Holland, whose dubious moral and ethical values have permeated across the border, they do things very differently from the rest of Europe. Unlike the assisted dying bill being proposed in Britain, which would give terminally ill people the right to end their lives, and only in the rarest of circumstances, the rules in the Lowland countries are considerably more lax. ‘Unbearable suffering’ is the vague yardstick by which it is permitted. Recently, Belgium even sanctioned euthanasia for children, and last year more than 1,800 people were granted permission to commit suicide — a 27 per cent increase on 2012. Thus, to the disbelief of Christiane’s surviving relatives, this week her killer’s death-wish was finally granted. In ghastly contrast to the suffering he caused his victims and their loved ones, Van Den Bleeken’s end will be pain-free and quick. Early next week, when the final legal formalities have been completed, he will be allowed to spend two days saying his goodbyes to family and friends. Then, in a pleasant hospital room, he will be sent into an everlasting sleep. ‘The process is very simple,’ says a source close to the case. ‘There is no question of any pain. Chemicals are injected into the body, creating a feeling of relaxation, then he will drift into unconsciousness and life will stop. It is utterly humane.’ Van Den Bleeken is in a secure unit in Bruges with some 150 other patients, and his lawyer told the Mail last night: ‘It is unbearable for him. He hears the other patients shouting and crying all day and night, and cannot live with it. ‘He knows he could live for another 30 years — he’s in a good physical state, but his mind is dead. He has stopped walking, as he used to do, and just sits in his cell all the time. He does, however, go to mass once a week. He has become very religious. Plea: It is rather like Ian Huntley (right) or Rosemary West (left), asking a British judge for the right to die because they could no longer tolerate life inside their top-security prisons . ‘He knows he’s made mistakes and in his own mind he doesn’t deserve to be alive.’ The Antwerp-born killer hails from a traditional Belgian working-class Roman Catholic family, an irony given the Catholic Church’s strong opposition to euthanasia. He claims he, too, was raped, when he was 15. Of course, there will be some in Britain who take a cynical view of Van Den Bleeken’s victory. They will point out that there are 11,500 sex offenders in our prisons: one in eight of all inmates. The cost of keeping them off the streets is more than £50,000 per prisoner: a staggering £575 million. If they are really so keen to expunge themselves, why not let those who are seeking an easy way out of their punishment do the taxpayer a favour? Yesterday, however, campaigners on either side of the debate were almost universal in their condemnation of the decision to allow Van Den Bleeken to end his life when he chooses. Christiane Remacle's family can barely believe that Van Den Bleeken (pictured) has been spared a possible 30 or 40 more years of incarceration . According to Dan Boucher, director of parliamentary affairs for the Christian charity CARE, which opposed the UK bill, it proves that, having opened the doors to assisted suicide 12 years ago, Belgium has already slid dangerously far down the slippery slope. Indeed, during the 24 hours since the Van Den Bleeken judgment was handed down, at least 15 more Belgian prisoners have lodged right-to-die requests with the country’s Federal Euthanasia Commission, and many more are expected to follow. ‘Once a country embraces the culture of death with its laws, then it’s not surprising that legality should start to widen the categories of people who can access it,’ Dan Boucher told me. ‘If we allow a sex offender to end his life, then who comes next?’ Who indeed. The respected medical ethicist Dr Helen Watt puts it this way: ‘We should never agree with a suicidal prisoner, or any other suicidal person, that his life is not worth living. Those who are rightly being punished for their crimes should receive proper health care, and their doctors should not be co-opted for procedures that are the very reverse of healthcare. ‘This is not capital punishment, but is billed as a “medical procedure” based on the prisoner’s low sense of self-worth. It is a clear sign of the slippery slope in euthanasia.’ Dr Iain Brassington, meanwhile, a senior lecturer in bioethics at Manchester University Law School, takes a different view. He says the issue hinges largely on whether society sees the purpose of prison as retribution or rehabilitation, and whether a prisoner committing suicide could truly be said to be ‘cheating justice’. Those who have suffered at Van Den Bleeken’s hands have no truck with such intellectual debate. Though his lawyer portrays him as remorseful, and attributes his personality disorder to a disturbed childhood which saw him placed in care at six, they can barely believe that he has been spared a possible 30 or 40 more years of incarceration. ‘Commissions, doctors and other “experts” have all investigated the highs and lows of our sister’s killer,’ Annie Remacle said yesterday. ‘And during all these years, not a single commission has examined the case of our parents’, or ours. ‘Not a single doctor or expert has asked us how we are. Now his lawyers say how much their client suffers! Well, we are suffering, too.’ Quite so, and for all those who loved the pretty young woman who went to a New Year’s party and never returned, there is no easy escape from the agony. Additional reporting: PETER ALLEN .
of 19-year-old Christiane Remacle, the unending Den Bleeken had already committed a string of serious sexual offences, yet thanks to Belgium’s before, finally, he was locked away indefinitely. lawyers argue that the 50-year-old has also been years that so unbearable is his existence that he finally granted. In ghastly contrast to the decision to allow Van Den Bleeken to end his life