This Mother Helped Her Daughter Die after 17 Years of Suffering

A mother cleared of attempting to murder her incurably ill daughter says that watching her die felt like 'having her heart ripped out'. Former nurse Kay Gilderdale, 55, wept after a jury found her not guilty - to cheers and applause from friends and relatives in the public gallery.

The trial judge questioned whether the week-long hearing should have been held at all since Mrs Gilderdale had already admitted assisting in her daughter Lynn's suicide. The case was in stark contrast to that of Frances Inglis, the mother given nine years last week for injecting her brain-damaged son with a lethal dose of heroin, because Lynn had said she wanted to die.

Lynn, 31, who suffered from the chronic fatigue disease ME for 17 years, begged her mother 'to end her pain' after taking an insufficient morphine overdose and she answered the plea by giving her additional drugs. The charge was attempted murder because it could not be certain whether the drugs administered by Lynn or her mother were what killed her.

Mrs Gilderdale, from Wadhurst, East Sussex, did not give evidence during the trial at Lewes Crown Court, UK. But describing her terrible dilemma in an interview, she said: 'You are torn apart. You have one part of you wanting to respect your daughter's wishes and understanding everything they have been through.

'You have got your heart being ripped out at the same time because all you want to do is to get them better and keep them alive.'

Following the not guilty verdict, Mr Justice Bean gave Mrs Gilderdale a conditional discharge for assisting the suicide, to which she pleaded guilty last July.

He said: 'I do not normally comment on the verdicts of juries but in this case their decision shows that common sense, decency and humanity which makes jury trials so important in a case of this kind.'

In tense courtroom scenes, he was told by the Crown Prosecution Service barrister that the decision to prosecute had been taken at the 'highest level'.

This is believed to be a clear reference to Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, who has been at the forefront of the 'right to die' debate since drawing up guidelines for prosecutors on assisted suicide last year.

Lynn Gilderdale had been in pain for 17 years, had previously attempted suicide and placed a Do Not Resuscitate note on her medical records.

The judge said Lynn had made a 'fully informed decision that she wished to die'. He added that her mother had acted 'selflessly and with exemplary devotion for 17 years'.

In an interview with the BBC's Panorama programme, to be shown next Monday, Mrs Gilderdale said helping end her daughter's life was the hardest thing she had ever done.

'There will be nothing that compares to that pain and heartbreak of watching my beautiful daughter leave this world.'

Her only other child, Stephen, 35, hugged his mother on the courtroom steps.

Standing alongside his father Richard, 56, who divorced his wife in 2002 but still took an active role in caring for their daughter, he said: 'These actions exhibited the same qualities of dedication, love and care that mum unwaveringly demonstrated during the 17 years of Lynn's severe illness.

'I am very proud of her and I hope she will now be afforded the peace to rebuild her life and finally grieve the death of her daughter.'

Esther Rantzen, whose daughter Emily suffered from ME for 14 years but has recovered, said she supported the verdict 'with all my heart'.

She told ITV News: 'The jury has shown yet again that ordinary people can empathise with this sort of tragic case, understand its uniqueness and realise it serves no purpose to put away a devoted mother into prison.'

Lynn was a musical and sporty teenager until she contracted ME as a teenager. In the final years of her life she developed a fear of hospitals after a botched operation left her with a punctured lung which filled up with blood.

She also told her father and mother in her final year that she had been sexually abused by a doctor at a London hospital when undergoing treatment at the age of 14.

The court heard that Lynn had previously carried out a failed suicide attempt in 2007 and had also been in touch with Dignitas, the Swiss assisted-suicide clinic.

At 1.45am on December 3, 2008, she attempted a morphine overdose - injecting herself with 210mg at the bungalow she shared with her mother.

After trying for an hour to talk her daughter out of it, Mrs Gilderdale gave her two further ampoules of the drug, which her daughter injected into a Hickman line - a tube connected to directly to her veins.

Her mother also gave her some powdered sleeping tablets through a tube in her nose. She later told her family's GP she had also injected her daughter with syringes of air in the hope of sending a fatal air bubble into her heart.

At a pre-trial hearing, Judge Richard Brown invited prosecution lawyers to drop the attempted murder charge in the light of Mrs Gilderdale's guilty plea to assisting suicide, adding that he felt a trial would 'not be in the public interest'.

He said: 'Wouldn't it be better to accept it now rather than let this defendant get tangled up in a messy trial for the sake of some legal mumbo-jumbo?'

But the CPS insisted in proceeding with the charge.

At the trial, Mr Justice Bean asked Sally Howes, QC: 'Why was it in the public interest to proceed with attempted murder rather than accepting the plea of assisted suicide?'

Miss Howes said: 'It was thought at the highest level this should be a case that should be canvassed before a jury.'

Last night a CPS spokesman said: 'There is no doubt that Mrs Gilderdale was a devoted mother who cared for her daughter up to the end of her life and we accept the jury's decision in this case.

'However the law does not allow someone to take the life of another, regardless of how compassionately they do it.'