Garda file on Joel for DPP this week

Gardaí investigating the death of a woman who died just days after being admitted to Wexford General Hospital in a severely malnourished…

Gardaí investigating the death of a woman who died just days after being admitted to Wexford General Hospital in a severely malnourished state are to send a file to the DPP later this week.

A Garda spokesman at Enniscorthy Garda station said yesterday the file on their investigation into the death of Evelyn Joel (58) was now being typed.

The Garda investigation began last month after an ambulance was summoned to the house Mrs Joel shared with her daughter, her daughter's partner and their two children in the Cluain Dara estate in Enniscorthy on New Year's Eve.

The crew were said to be so taken aback at Mrs Joel's condition they had alerted gardaí. A Garda spokesman said at the time that Mrs Joel had been found "in a bed in absolutely horrendous circumstances".

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Mrs Joel was admitted to hospital on New Year's Day and died six days later. She had been suffering from multiple sclerosis and is understood to have been confined to bed for a number of months. At the time of her admission to hospital, she was also suffering from septicaemia.

Gardaí conducted a forensic examination at the house where she had been staying. They also interviewed several people and a man and a woman arrested for questioning were released without charge.

Mrs Joel's daughter, Eleanor, said she had asked her mother to go into a nursing home, but "she was stubborn and very headstrong" and would not co-operate. She said her mother had been refusing food and when she told her an ambulance would be coming for in the end her response was "no".

The Health Service Executive is also conducting an inquiry into the death.