PETER SMALLToronto Star, February 8, 2007

A judge has broken new legal ground by ruling that a man

who admitted to slapping and neglecting his frail elderly mother,

allowing her to lie in squalor for days, is guilty of manslaughter in her death.

It is believed to be the first time in Canada that elder abuse has

been declared an indirect cause of manslaughter.

Donald Noseworthy allowed his 78-year-old mother, Mary, stricken

with Alzheimer’s disease, to lie “in filth and squalor and with deplorable

hygiene” in the east Toronto bungalow they shared, Superior Court

Justice Edward Then said yesterday.

Although the emaciated senior died of congestive heart failure, her son’s

neglect and beatings contributed significantly to her death, Then ruled.

Noseworthy, 55, confessed to police, in a videotaped statement, that he

kicked and hit his mother a few days before her death on July 14, 2005,

to the extent of hurting his hand.

He admitted that he treated his elderly dog better than his starving mother.

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February 8, 2007