A doctor on trial, charged with the manslaughter of her profoundly disabled daughter by giving her too much sedative, has told the Central Criminal Court she had a life of sleep deprivation, of pain, of watching her child suffer.
“I had this beautiful little baby. She was like my little bird with a broken wing. My job was to protect her, and not just medically, as her mother,” she said.
Bernadette Scully (58) of Emvale, Bachelor's Walk, Tullamore, said they had suffered so much at the hands of services that were not there.
“We were forced back into our little shell,” she said. “I created a little world at home for her. It was her beautiful little world.”
The Offaly GP was being cross examined by the State on Thursday on the eighth day of her trial.
She is charged with unlawfully killing 11-year-old Emily Barut at their home by an act of gross negligence involving the administration of an excessive quantity of chloral hydrate on Saturday September 15th, 2012. She has pleaded not guilty.
She denied during cross examination that a suicide note she wrote after Emily died was an acknowledgment that she caused the girl’s death, saying: ‘I had lost my reason for living’.
She said she had administered chloral hydrate when her daughter became upset at 2am and 6am. She said her daughter then had a massive fit after 11am.
“So, you decide you need to do something to stop this fit?” asked Tara Burns SC, prosecuting.
“I was standing there with her, not there with my logical medical head on me,” she replied. “I was working with my emotional mind, as a mother, looking at my baby, thinking I am going to have to stop this fit.”
She said that chloral hydrate was the only anticonvulsant she had.
Ms Burns said that the drug’s use as an anticonvulsant might be at issue.
Ms Scully said she had looked up the medical literature and found a residential centre in the UK, where chloral hydrate was used for children with epilepsy.
“They’re giving it, a 10 ml dosage to children Emily’s age every four to six hours, so it is documented,” she added.
“I think, faced with that horrendous fit she was in, I was thinking: ‘What can I give her?” she explained.
She said it was really quite a stressful situation, describing, it as pandemonium.
“If you’re in a hospital, you don’t have that emotional contact that I have with my Emily so you’re not standing back and thinking,” she said.
Ms Burns questioned her about the aftermath of Emily’s death, when she wrote a suicide note and made two attempts to take her own life.
“Can I suggest to you that the reason for that action was an acknowledgement by you after Emily’s death that you had been a cause of her passing?” she asked.
“I wasn’t the cause,” she replied. “I did not cause Emily’s death. It’s so hurtful to hear that.”
She said that she and her daughter were ‘just tied together’, that she had slept beside her all her life.
Ms Burns suggested that her actions afterwards supported a proposition that she had felt responsible for Emily’s death.
“No I didn’t. I wanted to go with Emily,” she said. “Emily came before anything in my life.”
The barrister then asked her to explain two portions of the suicide note: “If anyone thinks I’m awful for doing this, you should have listened to poor little Emily crying the last eight days. I love her dearly, Bernie”.
Ms Scully replied: “I meant, if anyone thinks I’m awful for killing myself. I’m talking about as the doctor, who was working with people who had committed suicide and I was letting them down.
“I was very distressed after seeing her suffer so much and I couldn’t save her. I wanted to save her.”
Ms Burns then read from the letter: “I do not want to die. I cannot let Emily’s suffering continue. I can’t watch it any longer. The pain is too big, the struggle each day is too hard, the loneliness and isolation too much.”
Ms Scully said she meant that she couldn’t let Emily’s suffering continue elsewhere. “I cannot watch this world without her. The loneliness and isolation would be too much without her,” she added. “I did not have my thoughts clearly organised on paper.”
Ms Burns noted that she had an absolute love for Emily and had attempted to have her treated with dignity during her life. “Your conduct after the event doesn’t seem to equate with a respect for Emily in terms of letting her peacefully pass,” she suggested, however. “There instead seems to be, by your actions, an acknowledgement that this is laid at your door.”
Ms Scully didn’t agree.
“I had lost my reason for living. I had lost my Emily,” she said. “I left Emily in my bed where she wanted always to be.”
She said Emily was always happiest in that bed, on her chest.
“I laid her peacefully on my bed,” she continued. “I did not want to go on. I did not want to live after Emily was gone.”
Ms Burns said that evidence of a nice conversation she’d had with her partner’s daughter, her tone of voice in a recorded call to the poisons centre, and her bringing the bottle and syringes back to the kitchen afterwards suggested someone who was together.
“I wasn’t ok after Emily died,” she said.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of seven women and five men.