Woman died from drug abuse

1:49pm Tuesday 5th August 2008

A mother-of-four died as a result of drug abuse, an inquest heard today.

Victoria Wray, 32, of Oakroyd Villas, Manningham, was a recovering heroin addict when she died of a methadone overdose two days before last Christmas.

Bradford Coroner’s Court was told that Miss Wray regularly sniffed up to six cans of butane a day.

She had taken part in the Ripple Project’s drugs rehabilitation programme in Buttershaw, Bradford, to help her come off heroin, since 2000.

She was prescribed methadone which she took at the pharmacy to stop her from stockpiling it – although she would be given the entire weekend’s dosage on Fridays, to take at home.

On examination, principal analyst Richard Sykes found a fatal level of the drug in her blood.

A post-mortem examination revealed her cause of death to be methadone overdose with contributory factors of alcohol and butane use.

In a statement read to the inquest, Miss Wray’s partner Jason Parkinson, a former drugs counsellor, said: “I kept clean needles in the flat for her because I didn’t want her using dirty ones. She would just be normal after sniffing gas but she was always tired.

“She’d have panic attacks but if I gave her a cuddle she would be OK.”

On December 23 last year, she suffered an attack that Mr Parkinson said was “worse than normal” and died.

Miss Wray’s drugs worker at the Ripple project, Jayne Hill, told the inquest: “We eventually built up a really good relationship and she got clean of the heroin. There was a big change in her.”

Recording a verdict of death from abuse of drugs, Coroner Roger Whittaker said: “It’s clear she had obtained methadone outside of the system provided for her either through stockpiling it at weekends or purchasing it elsewhere.”