A 58-year-old GP has been found not guilty of the manslaughter of her profoundly disabled daughter.

Bernadette Scully from Emvale, Bachelor's Walk, Tullamore, Co Offaly, had denied the manslaughter of her daughter Emily Barut by an act of gross negligence on 15 September 2012.

The prosecution said she gave the 11-year-old toxic amounts of the sedative chloral hydrate.

After just over four hours of deliberation the jury found her not guilty.

Ms Scully remained calm as the verdict was delivered. Her family cried and hugged her as she left the court.

In a statement given to the media and read outside court on her behalf, Ms Scully said she was "humbled by the kindness and support" offered to her over the past four years and during the trial.

"As I said in my evidence Emily was my little bird with a broken wing whom I loved, cared for and protected.

"Our struggle is mirrored in the lives of so many people in similar situations in Ireland. Like me, very many parents and carers of children who are disabled, struggle on a daily basis to get access to services and support systems which are very often simply not there.

"I respect the need to investigate Emily's death but the past four years have been a living hell for me and my family. I have not only lost my beloved Emily but was unable to attend her funeral.

"I haven't yet had the opportunity to properly grieve for her or celebrate her precious life," the statement read.

These proceedings have left me traumatised and emotionally, physically and mentally exhausted.

Warning: Some readers may find details of this report upsetting

The trial was told that in the days leading up to her death, Emily was recovering from a surgical procedure to replace her feeding tube.

She had been unsettled and in pain and had episodes of screaming and crying.

Her mother, who was also her GP, said she used the sedative chloral hydrate to help her sleep and also to control seizures when other anti-convulsants did not work.

Dr Scully said on 15 September 2012 she gave Emily three doses of the sedative between 2am and 11am.

She believed she gave her a total of 32mls in that nine-hour period. The trial heard the recommended dose is five or ten mls, but in extreme circumstances up to 20mls could be given in a 24-hour period.

The prosecution said Dr Scully was unsure in her garda interviews about exactly how much she had given that morning.

Toxicology reports showed the level of the sedative in Emily's system was ten times the therapeutic level.

State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy said in her opinion the cause of death was chloral hydrate intoxication.

She also agreed with the defence that Emily was at risk of a terminal seizure at any stage and that any one of her medical conditions was potentially fatal.

After her daughter's death Dr Scully tried twice to take her own life.

She wrote a note dated 15 September 2012 which said: "If anyone thinks I am awful for doing this you should have listened to poor little Emily crying the last eight days. I love her dearly."

It also said "I'm sorry love. Andrius, my love, I love you more than you will ever know, you are what has kept me and Em alive over the last five to six years.

"I do not want to die, I can't let Emily's suffering continue. I can't watch it any longer. The pain is too big. The struggle is too hard the loneliness and isolation too much.

"I'm of sound mind and I leave everything belonging to me to Andrius, he needs a home."

She also included messages to members of her family.

The note ends: "Goodbye my love, thank you for all you did for me and for Em.

My love Bernie x and Emily x"

In her first voluntary statement to gardaí, Dr Scully said she had given her daughter "too much" chloral hydrate.

She also said it may have contributed to her death. She said her daughter was having a massive seizure unlike any she had seen before when she gave her the final dose of the sedative.

She also believed the seizure could have killed her. However, the prosecution said tests carried out on Emily's brain tissue after her death showed she had survived a seizure.

In the witness box Dr Scully described a gruelling routine of caring for her daughter since she was born.

Emily was profoundly disabled from birth. She had microcephaly and severe epilepsy and could not communicate, stand, sit or walk.

She had hearing and vision impairment and chronic digestive problems. She needed round-the-clock one-to-one care.

She was on 13 different medications, including anti-seizure drugs. Her mother said she had to fight for services and "people are not queuing up to help you when you a child with special needs."

She said around that time she was exhausted and burnt out and had been forced to go back to work in her GP practice just days previously.

She said she had asked a psychiatrist to sign her off work but she had refused, suggesting instead that she put her daughter into residential care during the week.

Dr Scully said she was exhausted and could not continue.

She said she would never deliberately harm her daughter and had fought for years to keep her alive.

Asked why she did not stop to think about the third dose that day she said: "When you see your child fitting you are not going to stand back with a logical mind or brain and say 'I have already given you two doses', I don't think it was possible to do that."

Asked if she did not think of getting medical help she replied: "There was no time. I had to try stop the fit and after it Emily and I were there. I was crying over her but I knew she had stopped breathing. I knew what resuscitation involved and I didn't want that for Emily. I always tried to look after her with dignity."

She said she had tried to comfort her but her daughter's crying that night was "relentless, you would have a pain in your brain, I was so tired, what else could I do she was crying, her little body began to go stiff and she let out a shout. I thought in my head about all the medications I could not give her."

She said a few minutes after the final dose "everything went quiet and her lips went blue. I just took her up in my arms and I just held her and it was just so quiet, I knew she was not breathing. I held her and said please don't go."

In closing argument prosecuting counsel Tara Burns said the jury was not being asked to determine whether or not Dr Scully was a good mother. She said that was never in doubt.

But she said as a GP she owed her daughter a duty of care and she had been grossly negligent in administering the sedative.

She also said her conduct afterwards, in trying to take her own life and not telling her partner that Emily had died after he returned home, did not equate with someone who believed their child had died from natural causes.

Defence counsel Ken Fogarty said the prosecution and gardaí had ignored the fact that Emily could have died from a terminal seizure.

He also said expert witnesses could not give an exact formula for the amount of chloral hydrate needed to cause toxic doses to be found in the blood stream and toxic did not mean fatal.

He told the jury that Dr Scully had minded her daughter "like a little princess".

He said there were hundreds if not thousands of occasions where Emily could have died but her mother was there to make sure she did not.

He said Dr Scully was "falling asunder" as she tried to cope with caring for her daughter along with everything else she had to do.

He said it was "incredible to think that as a society we could dump all this responsibility on a single woman and when things go wrong say 'you killed her'".

He believed the case would lead to a debate here.