After completing her first degree in Nottingham after the accident, Dr Garner-Jones moved back to Liverpool to study for a Masters in Victorian English Literature. She was awarded a PhD in 1997 and insists her life has been worthwhile.

She is given 24/7 care by her mother Pat, 72.

”I feel I’ve contributed quite a lot to society,” she said. “People who come to my classes – they get a lot out of it.

“In fact, it’s society that’s second class in many ways. society doesn’t accommodate disabled people”. We all have our good and bad times, but it should be said that many of us lead many worthwhile lives, she said.

The press coverage of Mr James’s suicide failed to reflect the view that disabled people could live full lives, she added.

“They didn’t publish one comment and I know that there were some because I wrote some –saying that there’s an alternative. It’s just frightening it could open the door to people thinking if you become disabled there’s no future.

“I just didn’t like the phrase that it was a ‘second class existence’. Should that opinion be taken up, that makes disabled people ‘invalid’’ and that’s not something one wishes to promote.

“If you asked me ‘if you could push a button and be able-bodied?’, then yes, it would be easier.

“But on the other hand, would I rather be dead?

“No I wouldn’t.”

She says her accident may have spurred her on to do more with her life, but rejects the notion she is the exception or a “heroine”.

”I’m not in a minority here. The vast majority of people do cope with it.

“It made me more keen to study. I was quite lazy at school.

But she added: “Someone who had a manual job would find it much more difficult. The young man who was injured was very into rugby and that was his life.

“I don’t think bravery or heroism should be attached to my decision or the decision that the late Mr James made.

“I don’t want to give the impression that life is easy.” I don’t want people to think that the problems aren’t terrible. But then, most of us have problems.

The views of Dr Garner-Jones were voiced in Parliament yesterday by her MP Dr Pugh.

In a letter to himDr Pugh, she wrote: “Please speak out, as there should be one voice for those of us who turned a ‘tragedy’ into almost a ‘triumph’ and, despite the temptation to give up, went on.”

Echoing Dr Garner-Jones, Dr Pugh warned: “The proposals involve an individual regarding their life as intolerable, worthless, unbearable or lacking in human dignity – and the state endorsing that choice.”

In reply, justice minister Maria Eagle, the Garston MP, agreed it was a “difficult” issue and one the government would continue to consider.