Lawyers for Deirdre Morley, the mother who killed her three children while suffering from a mental disorder, are to bring a High Court action next month seeking to challenge a coroner’s decision to limit medical evidence in the inquests into their deaths.
Ms Morley, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity of murdering the children, is seeking a judicial review of the decision of Dublin coroner Dr Myra Cullinane on October 7th.
Dr Cullinane had decided not to allow medical professionals who had treated Ms Morley before the killings to give evidence about her mental state at the time.
Paediatric nurse Ms Morley killed Conor (9), Darragh (7) and Carla McGinley (3) in 2020 at their home in Newcastle, Co Dublin. Following a trial at the Central Criminal Court in 2021 she was found not guilty by reason of insanity of murder.
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A postmortem found the three children died by suffocation.
Ms Morley’s lawyers have argued the forthcoming inquest concerning the children would be “insufficient and inadequate” if it did not assess the state of her mental health at the time of the killings through evidence from those who had treated her in the six months before the tragedies.
Dr Cullinane intends instead to rely on expert witness testimony from consultant psychiatrists Dr Brenda Wright and Dr Mary Davoren, who had given evidence at Ms Morley’s trial.
At the High Court on Thursday, Fiona Gallagher, for Ms Morley, said her client had been committed to the Central Mental Hospital after the verdict.
Ms Gallagher said it was in “everyone’s interest” that the inquest could come to a conclusion in a timely manner.
She applied to have the High Court ex parte application – where only one side is represented – heard earlier than the date fixed of January 19th next year.
Ms Gallagher said it was coming up to six years since the January 2020 deaths and there were other parties involved who had to be taken into account, including the children’s father, Andrew McGinley, and medical professionals.
Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty granted Ms Gallagher’s application for an earlier date and adjourned the matter to December 8th.
After a three-day trial, the Central Criminal Court jury accepted the evidence of Dr Davoren and Dr Wright that the accused was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the killings and fulfilled the criteria for the special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster found the children had died by asphyxia from compressions of the chest area and airways.
Ms Morley told gardaí that at the time she was “overwhelmed” and her thoughts had been “getting darker”.
The trial heard Ms Morley wanted to save her children from the “pain and suffering” she felt lay before them because of her parental shortcomings.
She believed she had to take their lives as they were “more damaged” by her parenting skills and they “had to go together”, the trial heard.
