Barbara Eckersley has avoided prison after a judge found that poisoning her elderly mother was "both an act of love, and of despair".
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Eckersley was sentenced to a 24-month Community Corrections Order for killing her mother, Dr Mary White, by mixing drugs used to euthanise animals into a soup she then spoon fed the aged-care resident.
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The NSW Supreme Court jury on April 29 acquitted Barbara Eckersley of murder, but found the 69-year-old guilty of manslaughter.
The jury found that Eckersley had fed her 92-year-old mother Pentobarbital, known as "green dream", at Warrigal nursing home in Bundanoon, which lead to her death in August 2018.
Justice Robert Beech-Jones said the trial was "not about euthanasia" and "it was the ultimate violation of human rights for someone else to decide when [Dr White's] life would end".
He found that Eckersley had intended to kill her mother but it was "both an act of love, and of despair".
The judge rejected Eckersley's evidence that she only administered the drug to relieve her mother's suffering. He said the "intelligent and caring" Eckersley had "convinced herself she did not intend to kill her mother".
Justice Beech-Jones said Eckersley was mentally impaired at the time and "didn't have the capacity to understand events and understand right or wrong."
"It is hardly surprising that the jury refused to attach the label murderer to Mrs Eckersley.
"Mrs Eckersley has been haunted by her involvement in her mother's death."
Justice Beech-Jones presented to the court that Eckersley's early offers to plead guilty to manslaughter had been refused by the prosecution.
The judge found a term of imprisonment would not be suitable.
"[Eckersley] is in a sense fully rehabilitated and is not a danger to the community," he said.
"She overwhelmingly unlikely to re-offend.
"To compound the sad end of [Dr White's] remarkable life by imprisoning her daughter [was not suitable]".