Nottinghamshire Police started an investigation Tuesday after Gosling’s admission on the BBC East Midlands program "Inside Out" on Monday night that he killed his young partner more than 20 years ago.
Gosling said that he would refuse to cooperate with a police investigation and would not tell detectives the name of the man he claimed to have smothered with a pillow as he lay in the hospital.
"I’m not going to tell anything," said Gosling, 70, when asked whether he had considered that he might go to jail over his admission.
"There are different kinds of law, you know. There’s a law that’s written in law books and there’s a law in your heart... Different laws carry different weights at different times."
The veteran gay rights campaigner said that the killing was in the "very, very early days of AIDS," which suggests the mid-1980s.
"They [the police] will not know when, where, not a thing," Gosling said. "What’s the point of telling them? It was a private pact between us." S
The freelance presenter has denied suggestions that he made up the claim and said that he had informed some of his lover’s relatives about the killing.
A VETERAN BBC presenter will be interviewed by detectives after he told TV viewers he carried out a mercy killing on a former male lover who was suffering from Aids.
During a pre-recorded show which was aired on Monday night, award-winning documentary maker Ray Gosling, 70, revealed he smothered the unnamed man as he lay in hospital “in terrible, terrible pain”.
A spokeswoman for Nottinghamshire Police yesterday confirmed the force was not aware of the issue until the broadcaster made his revelation on BBC East Midlands’ Inside Out programme.
She said: “We are now liaising with the BBC and will investigate the matter.”
The BBC said it would “co-operate fully” with the police investigation.
Mr Gosling, who refused to reveal the man’s identity, said he was not “making a cause” of assisted dying but said there was a case for changing the law.
Yesterday he said: “Sometimes doctors do it on their own. Sometimes people do it on their own.
“And if it happens to a lover or friend of yours, a husband, a wife – and I hope it doesn’t – but when it does sometimes you have to do brave things and you have to say – to use Nottingham language – bugger the law.”
During the 30-minute programme, Mr Gosling said: “Maybe this is the time to share a secret that I have kept for quite a long time.
“I killed someone once... He was a young chap, he’d been my lover and he got Aids.”
Strolling through a graveyard, he broke down as he recalled: “In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said, ‘There’s nothing we can do’, and he was in terrible, terrible pain. I said to the doctor ‘Leave me just for a bit’ and he went away.
“I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead. The doctor came back and I said ‘He’s gone’. Nothing more was ever said.”
Mr Gosling said he had no regrets about his actions. Asked what he would say to police if he was questioned he replied: “Nothing. It is a private matter.” Sarah Wootton, of Dignity in Dying, said: “This case yet again demonstrates that this is a real and present problem, which can affect us all. The law is out of step with what society needs and wants.”
A spokes man for Care Not Killing said it was “irresponsible” that the BBC had not told authorities earlier, as the show was recorded in November.
“Instead [it] made the decision to make it international news just before the Director of Public Prosecutions releases his assisted suicide prosecution guidelines,” he said.
Aiding or abetting another person’s death is illegal under the 1961 Suicide Act, and punishable by up to 14 years in jail.
