Jurors consider verdict in ME daughter murder trial

Mrs Gilderdale admits aiding and abetting the suicide of her daughter

Jurors in the trial of a mother accused of trying to murder her daughter after a lengthy battle against illness have retired to consider their verdict.

Bridget Kathleen Gilderdale, 55, of Stonegate, East Sussex, is accused at Lewes Crown Court of the attempted murder of 31-year-old Lynn Gilderdale.

Miss Gilderdale, who suffered from the chronic fatigue illness ME, died on 4 December, 2008.

Mrs Gilderdale denies attempted murder but admits aiding and abetting suicide.

Miss Gilderdale developed ME at 14. She became paralysed and unable to swallow so had to be fed through a tube.

Lynn Gilderdale had suffered from ME for about 17 years

Jurors have heard how Mrs Gilderdale passed two syringes filled with large doses of morphine to her daughter, who administered the pain-relieving medicine herself in a suicide bid at the family home on 3 December.

Mrs Gilderdale then searched the house for tablets which she crushed with a pestle and mortar and administered through a feeding tube in Miss Gilderdale's nose.

Later, at about 0200 GMT on 4 December, Mrs Gilderdale gave her daughter two or three doses of morphine directly into the intravenous catheter and later gave her three syringes of air.

Miss Gilderdale died at 0710 GMT. A post-mortem examination found that the cause of death was morphine toxicity.

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