CARLISLE, England — A Carlisle man has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison after a jury convicted him of the gross negligence manslaughter of his 74-year-old mother, who lay dying on the bathroom floor of their shared flat for two weeks before he called emergency services.
Stewart Irwin, 56, who lived with his mother, Veronica Irwin, in a ground-floor flat on Rydal Street, finally dialled 999 on the afternoon of July 28, 2023, telling the call handler that his mother’s skin had “started to turn blue,” Carlisle Crown Court heard.
What paramedics found
Paramedics detected the smell of a decomposing body before they had even entered the flat. Inside, they 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 — 4 feet 10 inches tall and weighing just over seven stone — was taken to the hospital, where she died later that evening. The cause of death was hypothermia and neglected pressure ulcers covering more than a third of her body; some of the wounds extended through the full thickness of her skin and had caused sepsis. Barnes told the court “no attention appeared to have been given to her basic hygiene needs.”
What happened during the two weeks
Irwin had told multiple agencies he was his mother’s carer for at least 35 hours a week and had given up work to take on the role. Prosecutors said that during the two weeks his mother lay on the bathroom floor, Irwin was “going about his daily life”: he withdrew money from her bank account and made nine separate trips to a nearby shop to buy bottles of cider, the last of them the day before he finally called 999.
The trial and defense
Irwin denied gross negligence manslaughter but was unanimously convicted by a jury shown graphic photographs of the flat’s condition and detailed evidence of his mother’s injuries. He did not testify, though jurors heard he had previously told a clinical psychologist he had “tried to help” his mother, who he claimed had “repeatedly refused” assistance.
Defense barrister Andrew Ford KC told the court Irwin was a man of lower-than-average intellectual functioning who was accustomed to deferring to his mother’s wishes. “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.”
Sentencing
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.” Gross negligence manslaughter applies in cases where a person owed a duty of care to another and 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 intent to kill or cause harm.
Irwin is now serving his sentence following conviction at Carlisle Crown Court.
Sources: BBC News, ITV News.
