Mother of five found hanged in her bedroom

Donna Hegarty, 42, was found in her upstairs bedroom at her rented home in Evelyn Avenue, Thornbury, the morning after drinking two litres of vodka and coke during the afternoon and then going out to a Bradford pub on the evening.

She had been socialising with family and friends at the Boy and Barrel pub, Westgate, and then returned home, via getting some food from KFC.

She was reported to have been shouting on her mobile phone while in a conversation with her ex-partner. Miss Hegarty then fell asleep on her sofa. Her body was discovered by a friend of her daughter’s, who came to the house, later that morning, on April 8 last year, but no suicide note was left.

The medical cause of death was by hanging and she had 247 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood in her system at the time of her death, which is the equivalent of five pints of beer, Bradford Coroners Court heard yesterday.

The inquest heard Miss Hegarty had drank heavily since her father’s death, from a heart attack, three years previously. She was described as “the apple in her father’s eye” and used alcohol to block out the pain of his death.

The inquest was told she had tried to kill herself with an overdose two years before. Miss Hegarty was also assessed by Bradford District Care teams in February last year, after she told her daughter that she wanted to harm herself. Miss Hegarty then held a number of conversations with officials from Bradford Community Drug and Alcohol Service (BCDAS) over the next few weeks before death but had declined to use the services. She was also referred to The Haven service, which offers mental health crisis support to people of all ages living in Bradford, Airedale, Wharfedale or Craven, alongside the Sanctuary, a night-time mental health service, based at Mind in Bradford.

The hearing was also told that Miss Hegarty had thoughts to end her own life on and off for three years.

DC Hannah Mansell, who attended the incident, said: “Donna was found dead in her bedroom. There was no suspicious circumstances with her death.

“She had been out drinking and gone to sleep downstairs and during the night she had gone upstairs to her bedroom. It is just incredibly sad for her family.”

DC Mansell said Miss Hegarty’s mobile phone, which was also found in her bedroom, was checked by police officers who did not have any text messages or evidence of phone calls on it from her ex-partner on the night she died, despite claims from her family.

In a narrative verdict, Assistant Bradford Coroner Kirsty Gomersal, could not give a suicide verdict as she said she could not conclude Miss Hegarty’s intentions were beyond reasonable doubt.