Date set for mother and baby inquest

THE inquest into the tragic deaths of a mother under psychiatric treatment who smothered her little daughter before committing suicide is to be held in September, it was announced yesterday.

A report into the deaths of Madeline O’Neill, 40, and nine-year-old Lauren, which was published last month, was highly critical of the Eastern and Western Health Boards in the north for failing to follow basic procedures.

Ms O’Neill had told her doctor, a private counsellor and a psychiatrist at the Knockbracken Mental Health Hospital in Belfast, about her plan to kill her daughter and take her own life just weeks before she did so.