A HOUSEWIFE who left cyanide in her kitchen cupboard and killed a
party guest who thought it was sugar was freed yesterday after admitting
manslaughter.
Tricia O'Mahoney was jailed for four years -- the same time she had
spent in custody awaiting trial and in prison after conviction.
O'Mahoney, 41, pleaded guilty on the grounds that she was ''grossly
negligent'' by leaving the poison in her larder among food, an Old
Bailey Judge heard.
Her plea of not guilty to murder was accepted by the court -- although
earlier she had been convicted of the offence.
Mr Glyn Cooper, 51, died at O'Mahoney's house in Streatham, south-west
London, in June 1990, during a party while she was making him a cup of
coffee.
O'Mahoney was jailed for life in March 1991 at Knightsbridge Crown
Court for murdering Mr Cooper. The prosecution alleged she had poisoned
him deliberately.
While she was in prison, however, new evidence came to light and the
Appeal Court ordered a retrial.
At that hearing yesterday, Judge Neil Denison decided she had suffered
enough.
He heard that Mr Cooper died as he searched for sugar in her kitchen
cupboards to put in his coffee.
He saw a jar of white powder in the larder and put his finger in to
taste it. O'Mahoney had been using the poison to kill rats, the court
heard.
''Tragically one only needs a tiny amount of cyanide for a fatal dose.
Although the quantity on his finger was extemely small it was enough to
cause his death,'' said Mr Rock Tansey, QC, defending.
Mr Robin Grey, QC, prosecuting, said: ''It has always been the Crown's
case that she deliberately administered the poison. But we now accept
their was insufficient intent.''
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