Asked about his views on assisted suicide in general, he said: “It’s up to the individual. Until you’re in that situation yourself I think your views are irrelevant.
“Maybe you do look at things in an entirely different way when you’re in the position of having to make a decision. It’s not black and white at all.
“I took my dog to be put down a year ago and it was a blessed release for him and the responsible thing to do as a dog owner. It does focus the mind on the wider issue.”
The former England and Leicestershire cricketer married Emma, his second wife, in 1996 and they both made an effort to prevent Mr Dodds losing touch with his children, Charlotte, 23, and Thomas, 19, afterwards.
Agnew, his wife and her ex-husband even had Sunday lunches and holidayed together to ensure Mr Dodds stayed close to them.
Agnew, 53, said he had “always had a good relationship” with Mr Dodds, which provided a “healthy environment” for his stepchildren.
Mrs Agnew may not even have been aware of the conversation about assisted suicide between himself and her ex-husband, he said, but he believed she would take a similar view on the subject.
“I probably did tell her about it, but I’m quite sure that she would have felt the same way,” he said.
“I would imagine that most people (would). Maybe I’m being presumptuous. It would take a strong decision to say no to someone who wanted to end their suffering.
“It has to be for that individual to decide what he or she wants to do. If someone you love and care about, and who is clearly ill and suffering as (Brian) was, and he knew it was only going to get worse - I felt it was the right thing that he at least knew (I would help him).”
Under guidelines issued by the Crown Prosecution Service in 2010, a person accompanying someone to a foreign country to commit assisted suicide is unlikely to face prosecution.
But the guidance says a prosecution is “more likely to be required” if the victim lacked the capacity “to reach an informed decision to commit suicide”.
In deciding whether to take action, police must investigate whether a person was able to give their consent.
A mainstay of Test Match Special on BBC Radio 4 Live and a contributor to current Ashes coverage, Agnew got divorced from his first wife, Beverley, in 1993 after 10 years of marriage.
He married Emma, the editor of BBC East Midlands television with whom he had worked at BBC Radio Leicester as a sports producer, three years later.
He and his first wife had two daughters, Jennifer and Rebecca, and Agnew has previously spoken of feeling sidelined from their lives following his separation from their mother.
In an appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in February, he said he “really wanted to stand up for some of these men who so want to play a part in their children’s lives, and parents must be responsible in ensuring that the kids do get the best of both parents.”
Ensuring a father stays close to his children after a marriage breakdown was “the way you should try to make it,” he said yesterday.
Last month he encouraged his 240,000 Twitter followers to donate to the fundraising web page set up by his stepson, who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
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