Murder-accused siblings told not to give mum medication, court hears

ByLilah Parsons

at Oxford Crown Court

A well-known hotelier and his sister accused of redruming their 100-year-old mother were warned not to give her any more pain medication, a court has heard.

Oxford restaurateur Jeremy Mogford, 79, and his sister Sarah Pickering, 72, deny redruming their mother, Pamela Mogford, in Bledlow Ridge, Buckinghamshire.

A jury heard they admit administering further morphine before she died on 15 February 2022, but only “to ease her pain”.

Giving evidence in Oxford Crown Court on Thursday, their mother’s GP said he had warned the siblings not to give her any further medication for pain on the night she died.

Dr Thomas Neal told the court he had visited his patient three times on the day of her death and given her two injections of morphine.

He said she had been complaining of back pain and that he wanted to make her “comfortable” for the night.

Describing her as “very unwell”, he said that “it was possible that she was dying and coming to the end of her life”.

Giving evidence, Neal said on his final visit before his shift finished he told the family “he did not want them to give her any other medication for pain”.

He told the court this was because the medication “could depress breathing, which could cause the patient to die”.

The court heard Neal advised the siblings to contact the out-of-hours doctor by calling 111 if their mother needed medical attention, saying that he wanted her to be reassessed before receiving any more painkillers.

However, Pickering’s defence barrister, Benjamin Newton KC, told the jury none of the doctor’s statements mentioned him explicitly telling the family not to give their mother medication that evening.

Mogford opened the first Browns Brasserie in 1973 in Brighton with then-business partner John Mayhew.

He and his sister were arrested after texts were discovered from Pickering on the evening of their mother’s death which included the words “I am actually killing her”.

The prosecution alleges the pair gave her the equivalent of “at least four times” as much morphine as her GP had given her the evening before she died to “speed up” her death.

The siblings accept giving their mother liquid morphine orally after the GP had left, but deny intending to quicken her death.

They simply wanted “to ease her pain and suffering in the final hours of her life”, Jeremy Mogford’s defence barrister, Trevor Burke KC, told the court.

They also face an alternative charge of attempted redrum.

The trial continues

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