Horror of widow who fell on to fire

Police inquiries failed to find any evidence that anyone had broken into the home of wheelchair-bound Margaret Davison, 85.

Mrs Davison, a retired bakery shop owner, was found collapsed in front of the gas fire at her home in Dick Lane, Thornbury, on December 13 last year.

A resumed inquest in Leeds heard yesterday that there were no suspicious circumstances and no evidence that anyone had done anything inappropriate.

Yorkshire Coroner David Hinchliff recorded a verdict of accidental death.

He said that Mrs Davison was very poorly in the weeks leading up to her death and had imagined prowlers looking in the window and intruders getting into her home.

"I am entirely satisfied that there is nothing suspicious," he told the hearing.

The inquest heard that a carer found Mrs Davison lying against the bars of the fire during a second visit to her home that day.

She was taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary and transferred to the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, where she died on Christmas Day.

The cause of her death was given as broncho-pneumonia, burns to her right shoulder area and Pagett's Disease.

She had suffered five per cent burns after falling from her wheelchair. Medical evidence concluded that a deformed right leg and serious illness leading to loss of balance had caused the accident.

Mrs Davison's friend, Charles March, said he had been helping her with household tasks for the last few years and had helped her after previous falls.

Her carers had phoned her doctor in the hope that she would be admitted to hospital on the day of her accident. A short time later at about midday she was found to have suffered the fall.

The inquest heard that Mrs Davison had been a keen ballroom dancer when she was younger. Her husband, Eric, died in 1996 and she herself had suffered a stroke two years before that.

Mr Hinchliffe said: "The burn injuries were really the last straw in a whole series of problems."