Charles Fletcher-Cooke

Charles Fletcher-Cooke (1914-2001) was a lawyer and Conservative politician. He went to Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1945 he contested Dorset East as a Labour candidate. He was Conservative MP for Darwen 1951-1983.

Fletcher-Cooke was responsible for the creation, introduction and passage of the Suicide Act 1961, which decriminalised suicide across the United Kingdom, although he had been trying to introduce such a private member's bill before the British Parliament for over a decade beforehand.

Fletcher-Cooke was a junior Home Office minister from 1961 to 1963. In February 1963, Fletcher-Cooke had to resign his role as a junior Home Office minister after an eighteen year old borstal boy named Anthony Turner was arrested for speeding in east London. He was at the wheel of Fletcher-Cooke's Austin Princess car with his permission but without insurance or a driving licence. It transpired that Turner had been living with Fletcher-Cooke who was "looking after him" after they were introduced to each other by Robin Maugham, Viscount Maugham .