A Carlisle man has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison after a jury found him guilty of the gross negligence manslaughter of his 74-year-old mother, who lay dying on a bathroom floor for two weeks before he called emergency services.
Stewart Irwin, who shared a two-bedroom flat on Rydal Street with his mother, Veronica Irwin, finally dialled 999 in the early afternoon of 28 July 2023, telling the call handler that his mother’s skin had “started to turn blue,” Carlisle Crown Court heard.
Paramedics who responded to the flat detected the smell of a decomposing body even before entering, and found Mrs Irwin unconscious, semi-naked and malnourished. “Initially, paramedics thought Veronica Irwin had already died,” prosecutor Phil Barnes KC told the court. Mrs Irwin, who was 4ft 10in tall and weighed just over seven stones, was taken to hospital but died later that evening from hypothermia and neglected pressure ulcers that covered more than a third of her body. The court heard some of the wounds extended through the full thickness of her skin, and “no attention appeared to have been given to her basic hygiene needs,” according to Barnes.
The court was told Irwin had described himself as his mother’s carer for at least 35 hours a week, had told numerous agencies that was the case, and had given up work to take on the role. During the two weeks his mother lay on the bathroom floor, prosecutors said Irwin was “going about his daily life,” withdrew money from her bank account, and made nine separate trips to a nearby shop to buy bottles of cider, the last of them on 27 July, the day before he called 999.
Irwin denied gross negligence manslaughter but was unanimously convicted by a jury who were shown graphic photographs depicting the condition of the flat and heard detailed evidence of his mother’s injuries. He did not give evidence at trial, though jurors heard he had previously told a clinical psychologist that he had “tried to help” his mother, who he claimed had “repeatedly refused” assistance.
Sentencing Irwin, Mr Justice Bright said he “made a conscious decision” to leave his mother without help and “must have realised that she was approaching death.”
Defence barrister Andrew Ford KC told the court Irwin was accustomed to complying with his mother’s wishes over many years and was a man of lower-than-average intellectual functioning. “The (999) call was too late by a long way,” Ford said. “It must have been a difficult thing to do. He has always said to anyone prepared to listen… that he tried to move her and couldn’t. She wasn’t for being moved. She wanted to stay where she was. He is a man who is distressed about all this,” Ford added.
Gross negligence manslaughter is a charge applied in cases where a person owed a duty of care to another and their failure to act, or the standard of care they provided, fell so far below what was required that it is judged to have caused the victim’s death, even without any intent to kill or cause harm.
Irwin has now been sentenced following his conviction at Carlisle Crown Court.
Source: BBC News
