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Jailed: Mother, 45, who left dying daughter, 13, to go to the pub

A general view of the main entrance to the Sheriff Court on Chambers Street, Edinburgh.
Goldie was sentenced at Edinburgh Sheriff Court. (PA)

A mother who left her dying teenage daughter at home while she went to the pub has been jailed.

Sharon Goldie admitted failing to give her 13-year-old Robyn – who developed peritonitis, an inflammation of the abdominal wall membrane – adequate food, clothing or heating, and also to hitting her and letting her smoke cannabis and drink alcohol.

A court heard she stopped her getting medical treatment and Robyn died in July 2018.

Lord Beckett, sentencing in Edinburgh, said that while her daughter was in pain, Goldie “gave her a painkiller and went to the pub”.

“By the time you came home she was slumped on the sofa but you and your friend went into the garden to have a drink because the weather was nice.

“She was dead an hour later.”

Goldie, 45, previously pleaded guilty to wilfully treating and neglecting Robyn in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury between 12 July 2017 and 26 July 2018.

Sentencing her to three years and six months at a High Court sitting at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Thursday, Lord Beckett said Goldie showed “considerable cruelty over a prolonged period”.

The court heard that Robyn felt unwell the week before her death and by 24 July was pale and shivering.

She wanted an ambulance but Goldie refused it, also declining a friend’s offer to take her to hospital in a taxi.

Robyn also tried to ask a neighbour in the garden to get an ambulance, complaining that she could not breathe, but her mother took her back inside.

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The court was told Goldie, whose not guilty plea to culpable homicide was accepted by prosecutors, was affected cognitively and physically by a serious brain injury she suffered aged nine.

Her 25-year-old daughter recently died in China, the court was told, and she has only one surviving child, a 23-year-old son.

Marco Guarino, representing Goldie, said: “This is a lady who clearly has difficulties both mentally and physically, impacting on her ability in how to view things and the consequences of actions or omissions and I think that lies at the root of her culpability in this case.

“I can say to my Lord there is no punishment this court can impose that will be greater than the one she is suffering just now as a result of her actions, the death of her child.”

Lord Beckett told Goldie, from Wishaw in North Lanarkshire: “Even if your daughter could sometimes be challenging and difficult, she was subjected to a terrible ordeal of neglect and ill treatment by you over a long period.

“You had enough money to provide food for your daughter but chose not to and purchased alcohol and cannabis, you gave this to your daughter instead of adequate nutrition.”

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