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| Dagenham carer guilty of murdering MS sufferer father | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A carer who said she suffocated her father with a plastic bag because of his "intolerable" multiple sclerosis has been found guilty of murder. | |
| Claire Darbyshire, 36, said she killed her father Brian, 67, at their home in Wykeham Green, Dagenham, on September 2 2015 as part of a failed suicide pact. | |
| She was found the next evening wandering around cliff tops in Kent, asking for help. | |
| The Old Bailey jury unanimously found her guilty. She had denied murder. | |
| Bed-ridden | |
| Mr Darbyshire, a father-of-two, had developed MS in 1995 and lost his wife Lynn in 2008. | |
| His daughter had become his full-time carer when he became bed-ridden in 2014. | |
| Prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC said Ms Darbyshire had come to an "agreement" with her father that they would kill themselves; because of his condition and because "she would have nothing to live for once her father had gone". | |
| However, jurors heard that Mr Darbyshire had never expressed suicidal thoughts or complained about being in pain to nurses who visited him. | |
| Mr Rees said a woman who worked in a jewellery shop where Ms Darbyshire volunteered had noticed she was "more and more stressed" over time and complained about having to look after her father. | |
| After killing him she took a train to Dover. She was found the next day on the White Cliffs by a National Trust worker. | |
| Mr Darbyshire's body was found by police on 10 September, eight days after the killing, after a neighbour raised the alarm. |