Kim inquiry hears letter she wrote to judge

Just four months before she was found dead, 15-year-old Kim O'Donovan wrote to a High Court judge pleading with him to take her out of Newtown House high-support unit and place her in a psychiatric hospital. She said Newtown House was unable to meet her needs.

The letter to Mr Justice Kelly was never sent, following a decision by the authorities of the residential home, the High Court heard yesterday.

Ms Sheelagh Murtagh, manager of Newtown House since May 2000, said she and others decided not to forward the letter from Kim, dated April 6th, 2000, because Mr Justice Kelly's name was not on the girl's personal contact list. Contact lists featured persons concerned with children's welfare.

Ms Murtagh accepted the failure to forward the letter was a serious error but denied it was not sent because it gave the "wrong impression" of Newtown House.

In the letter, Kim wrote: "Before I came to Newtown House, I rarely felt suicidal or depressed. For the past few months, I have been waking at night crying or upset. I am usually a very outgoing person who talks too much. I now feel to tally alone and helpless to my problems. I do like Newtown House and the staff in it but I do not feel that this kind of care can give me the sufficient amount or type of help that I am seeking. I have indeed made a considerable amount of progress surrounding certain areas - i.e. anger management - but I feel to regain control of my life again, I am going to need more help than Newtown House."

Kim later wrote: "With every day that passes, I feel myself withdrawing further and further away from my problems instead of tackling them. All the staff are telling me to help myself first. For the past 15 years I have been trying to help myself but I keep failing. Please your honour pay heed to what I'm putting to you.

"I wrote a poem the day I tried to kill myself that I would like you to read. I would like to be given a chance to prove myself. I am asking you as a human being to please consider my request to go back to John of God's or somewhere less secure soon. My life is being destroyed at the moment. The other night when I tried to choke myself, I felt at my lowest and really wanted to die."

She concluded: "I know I don't want to die but at the moment I don't know I want to live. Please send a reply to my letter."

Ms Murtagh defended the decision to allow Kim to work, unsupervised by health board staff, in a private nursing home on July 15th, 2000. Two weeks after she began work, Kim absconded and, almost a month later, was found dead of a heroin overdose in a Dublin city-centre B & B.

Kim died just months before the Junior Certificate results were published in which, it emerged yesterday, she secured three As and two Bs.

Ms Murtagh was giving evidence at the opening of a High Court inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Kim's escape on July 28th, 2000. - at the time she was legally in the care of the East Coast Area Health Board at Newtown House, Co Wicklow - and what steps were taken to find her, before her body was found on August 24th, 2000.

The court heard that Kim was placed in Newtown House, with parental consent, on October 15th, 1998. By December 1999, the team involved in her care decided it was time to think about moving her into a less highly supported setting. Kim was anxious to get part-time work and her care team believed it would enhance her self-esteem and to reward good behaviour.

Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, for the ECAHB, accepted the board had never put before the court the proposal to allow the child to take up work outside Newtown House but it was purely "a therapeutic matter".

This was a carefully supervised calculated risk, done in Kim's best interest, which unfortunately went wrong, he said.

The judge said he had approved outings before but the crucial difference was they were supervised. The work proposal was radically different. His concern was the court should have been told that, for a crucial period, the girl was not in the custody of health board staff.

Ms Murtagh said Kim had assaulted staff on April 4th, 2000. After they removed certain items from her room, Kim became upset because her ratings at Newtown, calculated according to behaviour, had fallen.

Kim was seen later by doctors and the view was taken there was no need for her to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Following that incident, Kim wrote to Mr Justice Kelly.

The inquiry continues today.