Trial date fixed for care home death duo

TWO women are set to stand trial in April after pleading ‘not guilty’ to perverting the course of justice in the case of a young woman who died at a care home in the borough.

Last month, the pair also abandoned separate applications to have the case stopped. Marina Lupari (58) from Oldwood Road in Randalstown but currently living abroad, is alleged to have destroyed the original notes relating to the care and death of 25-year-old Katherine (Katie) Ryder, created her own notes and then ordered her co-accused and another woman to sign them and provide them to a police detective, ‘purporting that they were in fact a true account’.

Katie died at Ladyhill Lodge private nursing home in 2021, which has since changed ownership and is under new management.

While Lupari and another woman are accused of perverting the course of justice between January 2021 and July 2024, the particulars of the charges differ slightly.

Her co-accused, Helene Savage (50), from Toalstown Meadows in Toomebridge, is alleged to have signed notes, created by Lupari and which she knew to be inaccurate, and that she “provided an inaccurate statement relating to the care and death of Katie Ryder to (a named police officer), purporting that it was a true account.”

The alleged background facts were not opened in court but during a Coroner’s Inquest into Miss Ryder’s death, the court heard how she was found dead in her bed at the care home on the outskirts of Antrim.

She had been born with a rare chromosomal abnormality, causing her to have both profound Autism and Epilepsy, the court heard, conditions which caused a series of health problems including drop seizures where she could suddenly falling with no warning.

Lupari and Savage had been due to be arraigned last April - informed of the criminal charges against them, and asked to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, however both notified the court of their intention to make a no bill application.

A ‘no bill’ application normally requests the withdrawal of charges, either due to lack of evidence or if the prosecution is not deemed to be in the public interest.

At Antrim Crown Court last month, Judge Sandra Crawford was told by both womens’ barristers that the applications had been ‘abandoned’, and they were then arraigned, with Savage in the dock and Lupari appearing from abroad by videolink.

Last week, while Katie’s parents sat in the public gallery, neither defendant was present as a date was fixed for the trial. The court heard that a defence statement had been received from Savage and Lupari’s was being drafted and would be with the court imminently.

It was noted that while the witness list had not yet been agreed, there were 14 currently on the prosecutions’ list. Judge Crawford said that the trial may ‘tip into a second week’.

When Lupari’s defence team said that their client did not live in the jurisdiction, the judge replied: “Logistics can be worked out.”

After discussions between the judge and both legal teams, Judge Crawford fixed a date for the trial in early April 2027.