Mother jailed after going to pub while daughter was dying at home

A mother who left her dying teenage daughter on the sofa while she went to the pub has been jailed for three years and six months.

Sharon Goldie failed to seek medical help for 13-year-old Robyn as she lay suffering with peritonitis – an inflammation of an abdomen membrane .

In the week before her daughter’s death, Goldie had even prevented the youngster from trying to get treatment herself, a court was told on Thursday.

The 45-year-old, from Wishaw, North Lanarkshire, was sentenced after previously pleading guilty to willfully ill-treating and neglecting her daughter in a manner likely to cause her unnecessary suffering.

She admitted failing to provide adequate food, clothing or heating, hitting her, and permitting her to smoke cannabis and drink alcohol in the year before the youngster’s death on 26 July 2018.

She also pleaded guilty to exposing her to unhygienic living conditions including cat urine and cat faeces, which led to her getting fleas.

Sentencing her in a High Court sitting at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Lord Beckett told Goldie she showed "considerable cruelty over a prolonged period" and said there was no alternative to a custodial sentence.

He said: "Even if your daughter could sometimes be challenging and difficult, she was subjected to a terrible ordeal of neglect and ill treatment by you over a long period.

"You had enough money to provide food for your daughter but chose not to and purchased alcohol and cannabis, you gave this to your daughter instead of adequate nutrition."

The court heard Robyn was feeling unwell in the week before her death and by 24 July was pale and shivering, and said she needed an ambulance but her mother refused.

She also refused a friend's offer to take Robyn to hospital in a taxi.

On 25 July, Robyn was in the garden asking a neighbour to help her get an ambulance and saying she could not breathe but again Ms Goldie intervened and took her back inside.

Describing the day Robyn died, Lord Beckett said: "Your daughter was in pain that afternoon, you gave her a painkiller and went to the pub.

"By the time you came home she was slumped on the sofa but you and your friend went into the garden to have a drink because the weather was nice.

"She was dead an hour later."

Prosecutors accepted Goldie's not guilty plea to a charge of culpable homicide.

The court heard she had suffered a serious traumatic brain injury when she was nine, which affected her cognitively and physically and has had an impact on her ability to manage over the years

Marco Guarino, for Goldie said: "This is a lady who clearly has difficulties both mentally and physically, impacting on her ability in how to view things and the consequences of actions or omissions and I think that lies at the root of her culpability in this case.”