Ireland - Gail O'Rorke not guilty of aiding best friend's suicide

An Irish woman charged with assisting her best friend (and whom she was a carer for) to commit suicide has been acquitted in a Dublin court today.

43-year-old Gail O'Rorke had already been cleared of two counts under Ireland's Criminal Law Suicide Act, (the first case since the Act was passed in 1993) but was left with the charge of attempting to help Bernadette Forde, 51, travel to the Dignitas clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, to commit suicide. Bernadette had been suffering with Multiple Sclerosis for 10 years, which had been exacerbated by a car accident in 2008. She took her own life with an overdose of medication in June 2011. O'Rorke had earlier been cleared of ordering the medication online, from Mexico.

O'Rorke had visited a travel agent to book the trip to Zurich for her friend in 2011, and openly told the agent why. The agent had informed police and the trip was stopped. After Bernadette's suicide, charges were brought.

Afterwards, she said the experience has left her drained and exhausted.

"The last four years and in particular the last three years have been very difficult for my family and me," she said.

"The family of my dear late friend, Bernadette Forde, have had to endure intrusions into her privacy which she always guarded so carefully.

"The trial has now concluded with the hoped for verdict," she added.

And in a statement, issued by her legal team to the media, she also thanked her family and friends for their "incredible support", especially during the past three weeks.

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http://www.independent.ie/irish-new...-whispered-as-she-was-acquitted-31179762.html

Wow. I can't imagine what this is like for anyone involved...