A psychiatrist who had prescribed pills to a Mount Carmel patient was this morning found not guilty of the woman’s involuntary homicide.

The woman who had been suffering from depression had overdosed on around 90 pills that psychiatrist Anthony Mangion had prescribed for her in 2001.

She had suffered a serious bout and was taken to the hospital on September 15, 2001. Two days later she was sent home after Dr Mangion, her psychiatrist for 15 years, had examined her and gave her a prescription for six pills a day for 15 days.

But on the day she was discharged, her son called his father and said that his mother had swallowed around 90 pills.

They took her to Mount Carmel on her insistence but, on their arrival, she lost consciousness and was rushed to St Luke’s Hospital. She died in the intensive care unit a day later.

During a magisterial enquiry, the woman’s husband testified that his wife had a history of overdoses, but the psychiatrist said he did not know this.

In his judgement this morning, Magistrate Antonio Mizzi that from the evidence produced, there was nothing to suggest that the accused had not acted according to practice and he had not been negligent.