A woman who is on trial for the manslaughter of her 11-year-old daughter has told the Central Criminal Court she would never have deliberately hurt her because she loved her more than life itself.
Bernadette Scully wept in the witness box as she described the circumstances of her daughter's death on 15 September 2012.
The 58-year-old doctor, from Emvale, Bachelor's Walk, Tullamore, has denied the manslaughter of Emily Barut by an act of gross negligence.
The prosecution alleges she gave toxic amounts of the sedative chloral hydrate to her profoundly disabled daughter.
Ms Scully denied that a note she wrote that day in which she said she could not bear to watch Emily suffer, had been written before her daughter died. She said "absolutely not, I loved that child more than life itself. I would not hurt her deliberately."
She also said "I didn't want to kill Emily. I loved her."
She said she had given her daughter three doses of the sedative in a nine-hour period because she had been suffering and screaming in pain.
Warning: This report contains details that some readers may find upsetting
"At 2am she woke and began to cry louder and louder and I gave her 10mls of chloral hydrate, which was for when she was very stressed. I really tried not to give it to her but she was very distressed. I cried and I didn't sleep so well. I felt sorry for her, she was suffering and struggling and I was really tired myself," she said.
Ms Scully gave her a further 7mls at 6am. She said her daughter had a prolonged seizure at 11am.
She said she was panicked and exhausted when she gave her another 10mls of the sedative, followed minutes later by a further 5mls in an attempt to stop the seizure.
The trial has heard that the therapeutic dose is 10 or 20mls in certain circumstances.
A post-mortem toxicology report showed ten times the therapeutic levels in her daughter's system.
She said she had tried to comfort her, but her daughter's crying that night was "relentless."
"You would have a pain in your brain, I was so tired, what else could I do? She was crying, her little body began to go stiff and she let out a shout. I thought in my head about all the medications I could not give her."
She said a few minutes after the final dose "everything went quiet and her lips went blue. I just took her up in my arms and I just held her and it was just so quiet, I knew she was not breathing. I held her and said please don't go. We had always been together. She was part of me, we went everywhere together."
She said they had had terrible times in hospitals and she knew what resuscitation involved. "People pounding on their little bodies and sticking needles in them and I didn't want them to be doing that to her."
Ms Scully added that something took over her after Emily had died and she became like a robot and wanted to "go with her". She made two attempts to take her own life and spent several months in a psychiatric hospital.
She also described how around that time she had sought help from the Irish College of General Practitioners and had attended a psychiatrist, but had not received the help she needed because the doctors she attended "just did not get it".
She was "on her knees" and felt she could not keep going and needed to be signed off work.
It was suggested to her that she send her daughter away during the week and get her back at the weekend but she said "Emily is going nowhere."
She told the court her daughter's needs were far too complex and she could not have gone into respite care.
She said she did not know what it was like to have to care for a disabled child until she walked in those shoes herself.
She also rejected evidence given by gardaí yesterday that she did not raise possible alternative causes of death.
She said she was never given any quiet time to go through the post-mortem examination report but had told gardaí in her first statement that she believed Emily had died from a massive seizure.
Ms Scully also said she believed her career as a doctor was probably over as she had lost her confidence and her good name was being called into question and she was being accused of harming her daughter.
The investigation and trial were playing havoc with her grief and emotions and she had not properly grieved or come to terms with the loss of her daughter.
She said she had received expressions of support from many people in person and by letter but did not know if she could have the confidence again to say she was a doctor.
During cross-examination by prosecuting counsel Tara Burns she said she was "careful" about all of her daughter's medication.
She agreed that her daughter was on four other types of medication for her epilepsy, but said these were baseline medication which would be given every day with the aim of reducing the overall number of fits but were not for rescue medication during an acute episode.
She said these would not have been an alternative to chloral hydrate available to her on the day.
Court hears Emily had microcephaly
In the witness box this morning, Ms Scully outlined her work history as a doctor, her personal life and her efforts to have a child.
She said Emily was conceived through IVF after two miscarriages.
However, when she was two weeks old, Dr Scully discovered that Emily had microcephaly and was told she would probably never walk or speak and would be severely mentally disabled and would suffer from epilepsy.
She said: "My world just fell apart. I had really wanted this lovely little baby. I could not accept it, I was not a doctor at that time I was a mother and I decided I was going to work hard to change this."
She said Emily started episodes of screaming at 16 months and they were unsure of the cause.
A consultant paediatrician prescribed chloral hydrate, which helped her to sleep. She said seeing her child not suffering any more after the administration of the sedative was a huge relief.
Although she went on to prescribe the drug for her daughter herself she said it was in all her hospital notes and she informed all of her daughter's doctors.
"I used it as a last resort. I would only use it if she had been crying for two days."
She said she had checked with Emily's consultants about the use of the medication and was told it was an old fashioned medication but they were happy for her to use it.
Other anti-convulsive medications made her ill and were unsuitable, she said.
She said that around 2011 the epilepsy had changed and had got worse and she could not give her the usual medications for her condition because it caused severe vomiting and put her at risk of aspiration.
Ms Scully said at one point her daughter was having 30 to 50 attacks a day because her brain was "firing in such an abnormal way and her fits were so frequent, sometimes there just isn't an answer."
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
