Dutch medics performed euthanasia on a sex abuse victim who could not live with the memories of the ordeal she suffered as a girl. The woman, who was in her 20s, was given a lethal injection after battling severe psychiatric problems for 15 years. She had suffered from “treatment-resistant” post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia, flashbacks, hallucinations, chronic depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and mood swings. The woman was self-harming and suicidal and was also afflicted by a range of physical illnesses relating to her mental state. After deciding that nothing could be done to improve the woman’s condition, doctors and psychiatrists concluded that she was suffering “unbearably” and “hopelessly”. She told doctors that she wanted to die and they granted her wish after they agreed that her case met the criteria for euthanasia under Dutch law. Her death is believed to be the first in which a sex abuse victim has been killed by medics because of the suffering experienced in the aftermath. Lord Carlile of Berriew, co-chair of the think thank Living and Dying Well, described the decision to kill the woman as “absolutely outrageous”. The case emerged as new figures revealed the number of mental health patients killed by euthanasia in the Netherlands had quadrupled in four years. Official statistics said that 56 people received a lethal injection in 2015 because they were suffering “unbearably” from psychiatric problems. In 2011 there were just 13 such deaths recorded. The overall number of deaths by euthanasia in the Netherlands increased by just over four per cent, rising from 5,306 to 5,561.