Troubled Chesterfield mum died after taking medication

Lisa Bailey was found unresponsive at her Brimington home in February this year and died 11 days later in hospital.

A documentary inquest held this morning (Wednesday, July 22) at Chesterfield at Coroner’s Court heard that Ms Bailey had argued with her oldest daughter the previous day after borrowing £330 from her and spending it on drugs.

When Ms Bailey then asked for more money and her daughter refused, Ms Bailey threatened to take medication.

It is believed that Ms Bailey, of Bell Vue Road, took medication at some point during the night as her daughter awoke to find her unresponsive.

Her daughter then telephoned for an ambulance and Ms Bailey was taken to Chesterfield Royal Hospital.

The medication had triggered a hypoxic brain injury and she was moved onto ‘end of life’ care before she died on February 16.

The court heard that Ms Bailey had a long history of drug abuse and would take heroin and crack cocaine daily, along with a cocktail of prescribed drugs.

The troubled 48-year-old also suffered from mental health problems including anxiety, depression and borderline personality disorder, and would often hear 'awful’ voices in her head.

She led a ‘chaotic lifestyle’ and had to sleep in the living room as her bedroom was ‘strewn with boxes and clothes’, which worsened her mental health problems.

In a statement read aloud to the court, Ms Bailey’s daughter revealed her mother had been a drug addict from an early age, stealing from her parents to fund her habit.

She had overdosed several times over the course of her life and was being supported by mental health workers after the death of her mother in 2018 which ‘hit her hard’.

But Ms Bailey told her GP in the months leading up to her death that although she sometimes suffered from ‘low mood’ and had suicidal thoughts, she had ‘no plans’ to act on them with her oldest daughter being a ‘protective factor’.

A police investigation found ‘nothing suspicious’ or anything to suggest that anyone but Ms Bailey had administered the medication on February 5.

This, paired with the fact that Ms Bailey had left no note or made any final preparations, prompted assistant coroner Emma Serrano to conclude a death by misadventure.

Ms Serrano said: “I don’t think she intended to take her own life in this situation, and acted under the influence of some short-term emotion.

"I’d like to extend my condolences to the family.”

The medical causes of death were given as hypoxic brain injury and long-acting insulin overdose.

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