The Supreme Court of Canada has restored a woman’s conviction for attempting to kill her mother by injecting her with insulin.
In its decision, released Friday, the top court rejected the argument that the jury in the woman’s trial should have been instructed on the distinction between attempted murder and aiding suicide.
In June 2019, a neighbour found the woman — a nurse identified only as B.F. due to a publication ban — her mother and B.F.’s 19-month-old daughter unconscious in their home. All three had been injected with insulin.
Emergency responders discovered five empty insulin pens at the scene, along with a handwritten note.
B.F. and her mother made full recoveries. The child suffered serious injuries.
At B.F.’s trial, the Crown contended that an ongoing dispute over custody of the child gave the woman a motive for the offences.
The defence suggested B.F.’s mother could have injected herself, her daughter and her grandchild with insulin.
A jury found B.F. guilty of attempting to murder her mother and daughter.
The Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed B.F.’s challenge of her conviction for attempting to kill her child — a decision upheld in the Supreme Court ruling Friday.
The provincial Court of Appeal allowed B.F.’s appeal on the attempted murder of her mother and ordered a new trial on the charge. It suggested B.F. could have given the insulin to her mother, who then might have injected herself in a suicide attempt.
In its decision, the Supreme Court said B.F.’s conviction on the attempted murder of her mother should be restored because the jury was properly equipped to decide her guilt.
Since B.F. was not charged with aiding suicide and it is not included in the offence of attempted murder in this case, the jury did not need to consider whether she was guilty of this offence, Justice Michelle O’Bonsawin wrote on behalf of the majority.
Justice O’Bonsawin also said there was “no air of reality” to a scenario in which B.F. aided her mother in self-administering the insulin with an intention to end her own life.
The trial judge was therefore correct not to address this scenario in his instructions, she added.
“The question of the legal relationship between attempted murder and aiding suicide has no bearing on the appeals,” she wrote.
