London , England ( CNN ) -- British police said Wednesday they have arrested a BBC television presenter on suspicion of murder after he told viewers he carried out a so-called mercy killing on a former lover . Ray Gosling , 70 , a freelance broadcaster , admitted on a BBC show aired in central England that he had smothered the unnamed partner in hospital where he was being treated for AIDS . Assisting in another person 's death is illegal in England . Police in Nottinghamshire , 160 kilometers ( 100 miles ) north of London , confirmed they had made an arrest after the apparent confession on the BBC 's `` Inside Out '' show . Gosling made his admission in a taped segment of a 30-minute show about death , recounting how he smothered his partner to end his `` terrible , terrible pain . '' He told viewers : `` 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 . `` In a hospital one hot afternoon , the doctor said 'There 's nothing we can do , ' and he was in terrible , terrible pain . `` 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 . '' Gosling , who has not revealed details of his former lover 's identity or the exact date of the incident , insisted he was not `` making a cause '' of assisted dying . In a BBC Radio interview 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 does n't , but when it does sometimes you have to do brave things and you have to say - to use Nottingham language - bugger the law . ''
Ray Gosling admitted on a television show that he killed his former lover . Comment: Presenter says he is not trying to `` make a cause '' of assisted dying .