Gail O’Rorke acquitted of helping friend take her own life

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

Gail O’Rorke was acquitted of attempting to assist her friend Bernadette Forde’s suicide at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. The jury took seven hours to reach its verdict after an eight-day trial. The proceedings were reported on 28 April 2015.

The charge alleged that O’Rorke attempted to aid and abet Forde’s suicide by attempting to arrange travel to Zurich, Switzerland, between 10 March and 20 April 2011. O’Rorke pleaded not guilty.

In the week before the report, following legal argument, Judge Patrick McCartan ordered the jury to acquit O’Rorke of ordering a lethal dose of barbiturates from Mexico. Forde later took the drugs to end her life on 5 June 2011. The judge also directed the jury to find O’Rorke not guilty of procuring her friend’s suicide by helping to organise her funeral before her death.

The case was the first prosecution under the Criminal Law (Suicide) Act 1993, which decriminalised suicide but made assisting another person to end their life an offence.

Prosecuting counsel Remy Farrell SC said he was not suggesting O’Rorke had badgered or encouraged her friend to commit suicide; on the contrary, she had tried to talk her out of it. Dermott McGuinness SC, defending, asked how O’Rorke could have aided and abetted something that never happened.