A 60-year-old woman in Montreal who helped her ailing adult son commit suicide won't be going to jail.

Marielle Houle was sentenced on Friday to three years' probation, which means she will remain at large but must report regularly to a probation officer. She pleaded guilty on Monday to a charge of assisting in a suicide.

• FROM JAN. 23, 2006: Montreal mother pleads guilty to assisted suicide

Marielle Houle during a court appearance in 2004. (CP file Photo/Ryan Remiorz)

The Criminal Code provides a 14-year maximum sentence for the offence. Houle's lawyer argued that she acted out of compassion and should not be imprisoned. The Crown left the decision to the judge.

Houle's son, Charles Fariala, a playwright and former nurse at a Montreal chronic-care centre, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2002 and believed the degenerative disease was advancing rapidly.

He decided to kill himself at age 36, using a method he found on the internet.

Fariala took a mixture of drugs. Houle then tied his hands, put a plastic bag over his head and stayed with him until he died. A short time later, she turned herself in to police.