A FORMER pilot given just three months to live is planning to die with the help of Swiss assisted-dying clinic Dignitas.

Andrew Barnes said his quality of life was deteriorating quickly because of a failing liver and an enlarged heart.

He regularly suffers pulmonary edema — fluid on the lungs — and takes a cocktail of drugs to control his illnesses.

Mr Barnes, 54, by his own admission a heavy drinker, was told three years ago that unless he reduced his alcohol intake, he faced life-threatening disease.

He was given his recent prognosis during treatment at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital last week, where he spent ten days having fluid drained from his lungs.

Mr Barnes, who lives in a flat in Altamira, Topsham, hopes that by publicising his situation, he will raise the issues of human euthanasia.

He said that after seeing his father die of cancer in a hospice, he wanted a "quick and clean" death.

On being told of his short life expectancy, the father-of-three said: "It is one of those situations you see in the movies but no one expects to be in.

"I've told my GP private arrangements have been made with Dignitas in Geneva for when my life falls below a certain level."

Mr Barnes, who spent time in the US, gave up drinking for more than a decade but went back to it a few years ago.

"We reap what we sow and I have drunk heavily for a number of years. I have now gone beyond the point of no return," he said.

"I am being kept alive by steroids and powerful drugs. Every time I have liquid on the lungs, I have to take more drugs, and these further weaken my heart and liver."

The former pupil of Blundell's School, Tiverton, said he had lived an interesting and varied life and did not want his last days to be "full of catheters and canulas".

"We are all going to die and I think it is my right to end my life peacefully and with dignity," he said. "I decide how it is done, rather than being carted away in an ambulance in the middle of the night. I have been treated wonderfully by the NHS and have nothing but praise for the RD&E and all the staff there. I just don't want to die in a hospital."

Mr Barnes cares for his 87-year-old mother Kay.

He said: "It is a very complicated situation. She will have to sell her flat and move into care."

He has completed the relevant application forms for Dignitas and is prepared to pay the 10,000 fee (approximately £8,600), which would cover the costs of an assisted suicide and funeral arrangements.

He said he wanted to make his final journey alone, fearing anyone who assisted him on the trip might face prosecution.

A record number of British people ended their lives at Swiss "suicide clinics" last year. More than 30 travelled to die with the help of Dignitas or Ex-International in 2009.

Campaign groups want to end the fear of prosecution for those who assist in suicides.

Under Swiss law, helping another person end their lives is not a crime unless they act from "selfish motives", but in England and Wales, assisting suicide remains punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Dignitas, a charity, helps people to die by giving them doses of two different drugs, usually taken orally.

Ludwig Minelli, who founded Dignitas in 1998, has described choosing how to die as the "last human right".

Dignitas was recently linked to the discovery of dozens of urns containing ashes which were found at the bottom of Lake Zurich.