A woman has admitted trying to murder her elderly mother by smothering her with a pillow as she lay in a hospital bed.
A court heard Susan Hardwick, 64, carried out an “attempted mercy killing” as she believed her mother Joan Hardwick, 89, was going to be transferred to a hospital for palliative care where she had received poor care previously.
An earlier hearing was told Joan Hardwick was receiving end-of-life care at Doncaster Royal Infirmary at the time of the incident on July 24 last year.
Susan Hardwick was visibly emotional as she pleaded guilty to attempted murder at Sheffield Crown Court on Monday.
Her basis of plea, read in court, said: “At the time of the incident the defendant was suffering from depression and anxiety through being separated from her mother – they had never been apart.
“She understood her mother was about to be transferred to another hospital to undergo palliative care.”
The court heard Susan Hardwick, who has “significant” mental health problems, “feared her mother would die alone and in discomfort” at the other hospital and the incident was “consistent with an attempted mercy killing”.
She told a witness she was going to kill her mother and then kill herself, a judge was told.
The court heard Joan Hardwick, who was also found with a cut to the back of her neck after the incident, is now in a care home and was “anxious” to see her daughter, particularly as her 90th birthday is coming up in August.
Judge Jeremy Richardson lifted a restraining order restricting Susan Hardwick’s contact with her mother, and bailed her until her sentencing hearing on September 29.
He told the defendant: “You will be treated fairly and justly – I can make no promises, but this is a very unusual case and because of that I rather suspect a very unusual sentence may be passed.
“I will say no more at the moment but I do understand the very considerable difficulties that you have.
“This case is a tragedy on the grand scale, from first to last.”
