A terminally ill man from Chester who is preparing to die in Switzerland has called for a change to the UK law on assisted dying.

Former town councillor at Blaenau Ffestiniog Bob Cole, 68, is expected to die at 2pm today at the controversial Dignitas euthanasia unit.

His planned death comes around 18 months after watching his wife Ann Hall do the same.

He and his wife, Ann, ran an award-winning guest house, Bryn Elltyd, near Blaenau, Gwynedd for years.

Mr Cole, who suffers an aggressive form of lung cancer called mesothelioma, said he was 'taking a stand'.

The cancer-stricken widower has urged politicians to review the law, which makes it illegal for others to encourage or assist someone trying to take their own life.

Mr Cole, who now lives in Chester, told The Sun: “I should be able to die with dignity in my own country, in my own bed.

“The law needs to change. How do you change the law?

“People have got to take a stand. So that’s what I’m doing today.

“I saw Ann die and a year later to be faced with the same decision yourself is quite the double whammy. I had just started to pick myself up when I fell ill.”

According to the paper, the former carpenter from Chester spent £12,000 on the one-way trip.

Mr Cole said his cancer had seen him bent double, 'crouching like an animal', adding: “That’s no life.”

He said: “The politicians need to have the guts to change this law. Just bite the bullet.

“Accept that the British public want this change. If they don’t it will be forced upon them because the public feeling is overwhelming.”

His wife, Ann, 67, who suffered from progressive supranuclear palsy, chose to die in February last year, in a process Mr Cole called “graceful”.

Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said: “Bob’s decision is yet another reminder that the current law is broken.

“Parliament’s job is to fix the law so people like Bob and his wife Ann are no longer forced to travel abroad to simply have control over the manner and timing of their own deaths.”