Rough justice - Aisling Brady McCarthy

IT seems extraordinary that in the US, an apparently civilised, modern society, a totally innocent person can be imprisoned for almost three years, have her reputation ruined, her life put in tatters, and her mental and physical and mental wellbeing compromised.

Yet that is exactly what happened there to Aisling Brady McCarthy, a 37-year-old Irish nanny wrongly accused of murdering a baby girl in her care in Massachusetts.

Ms McCarthy had the charges against her dropped on Monday after a medical examiner ruled that the one-year-old child had not been murdered but had died from undetermined injuries, possibly associated with an inherent fatal condition or disease.

In other words, not only could prosecutors not sustain charges of unlawful killing against her, but they could not even prove that the death was due to homicide.

Ms McCarthy’s lawyer has branded her treatment by the US criminal justice system as a disgrace.

It is difficult to disagree with that verdict.