Bernadette Scully pleads not guilty to manslaughter charge

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Bernadette Scully has pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of her daughter, Emily Barut, at their home at Emvale, Bachelor’s Walk in Tullamore in 2012. The proceedings were reported on 13 December 2016.

The report said Scully admitted giving her daughter four doses of the sedative chloral hydrate on 15 September 2012. The final two doses were given at around 11am to try to control a seizure. Emily stopped breathing after the final dose.

In her closing speech that morning, Tara Burns, acting for the DPP, challenged the defence’s suggestion that Emily had died from the seizure. Burns said the evidence did not support that explanation.

Burns argued that Scully, as Emily’s doctor, owed her a duty of care and had been grossly negligent in administering an excessive dose of chloral hydrate. She also asked jurors to regard Scully’s subsequent attempted suicide as a clear acceptance of responsibility for Emily’s death.

Ken Fogarty, representing Scully, said it was incredible that society could place all that responsibility on one person and then accuse that person of killing her daughter when things went wrong.