{"id":159200,"date":"2025-11-25T17:56:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T17:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/159200\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T17:56:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T17:56:06","slug":"mother-who-killed-her-three-children-challenges-coroner-over-scope-of-inquest-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/159200\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother who killed her three children challenges coroner over scope of inquest \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A mother who killed her three children is seeking permission to bring a legal challenge over a coroner\u2019s decision on the medical evidence to be heard at their inquests.<\/p>\n

In 2021 paediatric nurse Deirdre Morley was found not guilty by reason of insanity of murdering her three children<\/a>, Conor (9), Darragh (7) and Carla (3), at the family home in Newcastle, Co Dublin, on January 24th, 2020.<\/p>\n

Postmortems found all three children died from suffocation.<\/p>\n

In proceedings filed on Monday, Ms Morley is seeking permission for a judicial review of a decision by Dublin Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane not to call evidence from medical professionals who had treated Ms Morley before the children\u2019s deaths.<\/p>\n

Ms Morley is being represented in the action by CM Haughey Solicitors, which said it could not comment as the matter was before the courts.<\/p>\n

Andrew McGinley, the children\u2019s father, is not party to the case, but said he fully supported it.<\/p>\n

He said the financial cost of such litigation was the only reason he had not issued such proceedings himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has always been my hope that something positive would come out of the inquests of Conor, Darragh and Carla. This inquest doesn\u2019t bring them back to life, it doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s not about blame or exoneration, it\u2019s about saving other children and other patients. I don\u2019t want other people going through what I\u2019ve been through,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr McGinley said there were circumstances and decisions that \u201ccontributed to the deaths of my children\u201d and he wanted these answers to be provided through these inquests by the people who were active in Ms Morley\u2019s care.<\/p>\n

The application comes after a dispute emerged at a preliminary hearing of the children\u2019s inquests in October over the scope of the evidence<\/a> to be heard.<\/p>\n

Dr Cullinane ruled that evidence to be heard at the inquest about the state of Ms Morley\u2019s mental health would be given by two forensic consultant psychiatrists who had given evidence at her 2021 trial. <\/p>\n

At that hearing the coroner said she had asked the psychiatrists, Brenda Wright and Mary Davoren, to prepare new reports for the inquest. <\/p>\n

But the decision was questioned by Ms Morley\u2019s legal team.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the hearing, Fiona Gallagher, for Ms Morley, said the inquest should call the medical professionals who had treated her client in the six months before the tragedy.<\/p>\n

Ms Gallagher said evidence from treating doctors should be examined to ensure her client\u2019s mental state was \u201cinquired into in a comprehensive and appropriate fashion\u201d.<\/p>\n

The evidence at issue includes medical records from doctors who treated her in St Patrick\u2019s Hospital, Dublin, as well as medics in Clondalkin and in Tallaght, Co Dublin.<\/p>\n

Simon Mills SC, for consultant psychiatrist Olivia Gibbons, who treated Ms Morley in St Patrick\u2019s, told the hearing that any evidence from Dr Gibbons would not be contemporaneous.<\/p>\n

He said Ms Morley was found not guilty of her children\u2019s murders by reason of insanity following a 2021 trial at the Central Criminal Court.<\/p>\n

Since an earlier preliminary inquest hearing in 2023, Ms Morley and her legal team have \u201cat no point in the intervening two-and-a-half years\u201d indicated this verdict was incorrect, he said at the hearing.<\/p>\n

The inquest is to be held on date to be announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother who killed her three children is seeking permission to bring a legal challenge over a coroner\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,63108,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-159200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-inquest","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}