LAWFUEL – The Legal Newswire – A man accused of administering a fatal dose of morphine to his terminally ill mother will stand trial for attempted murder – but not for murder, the New Zealand Herald reports.
The man, 49, whose identity is suppressed, had been appeared in the Taumarunui District Court for a depositions hearing on charges of murder and attempted murder.
The court decided today that he would stand trial on the lesser charge.
Yesterday the court heard that he asked a nurse if anything could be done to hasten the process of dying.
Hours later his mother was dead and a “cocktail” of drugs in a syringe – programmed for release over 24 hours – was found empty.
The court heard that his 77-year-old mother was in a rest home and in the final stages of stomach cancer.
On the day she died, in February, the man and his two sisters saw her in a distressed state in which she cried out for help and thrashed about in bed.
Rest-home nurse Janet Lester said that after this incident, the accused asked her what could be done to “make it quick and hurry her death along”.
