THE widow of the GP cleared last year of mercy killing said last night she was disappointed that her husband could not get his memoirs published before his death.

When Dr Dave Moor died at the weekend he had just put the finishing touches to a 150-page book detailing the last three years of his life.

His manuscript charts the build- up to the trial into his alleged mercy killing of terminally-ill cancer patient George Liddell, 85, the trial itself, a number of similar case studies, and the aftermath of the not-guilty verdict.

Despite the fact the trial gripped the nation last May, no publishers showed an interest in the book, and before his death Dr Moor was trying to publish it on the Internet.

A jury at Newcastle Crown Court took just 69 minutes to clear him of murder.

His trial re-opened the national euthanasia debate, and led to the creation of the Friends of Dr Moor Support Group.

The book, written during the most traumatic period of the GP's life, could yet get into the public domain if it gets an online airing.

His widow, Sylvia, said: "The tragedy is that he somehow lost the book on the computer before he could get it onto hard disk, so there is only one hard copy in existence now.

"The whole trial has been brought to the fore again so it's surprising that no one seems that interested."

Dr Michael Irwin, a close friend of Dr Moor and vice-chairman of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, said: "I've only read the last chapter of David's book but I enjoyed it enormously. It highlighted the stresses he was under.

"I would have thought that the legal and medical professions at the very least would have shown an interest."