Social worker found dead in flat

3:40pm Thursday 26th April 2001

THE circumstances surrounding the death of the first blind social worker in Buckinghamshire are shrouded in mystery, an inquest heard.

Pamela Webb, 58, who suffered from schizophrenia and chronic epilepsy, was found dead at her home in Shelbourne Court, High Wycombe, where she was on weekend release from a centre in Amersham Hospital.

She had suffered from epilepsy and blindness since a childhood operation on a benign brain tumour.

Miss Webb's schizophrenia was being treated with Clozapine which requires patients to undergo weekly monitoring to check levels present in the blood.

Following a post-mortem, the cause of Miss Webb's death was initially given as a Clozapine overdose by Dr Mark Bailey, a consultant pathologist.

But detailed medical evidence decided the high levels of Clozapine present in the blood could have been released in the time which elapsed between the patient's death and the post-mortem.

Miss Webb's sister, Jacqueline Morgan, of Wyndham Street, London, said she had not been able to see her sister on the weekend of her release, between July 13 and 17, last year, but then received a call from the night nurse at the centre to say Miss Webb had not returned.

She told the inquest she and her husband then went to Miss Webb's flat where Mr Morgan found Miss Webb dead on the toilet.

Summing up, Richard Hulett, Buckinghamshire Coroner, said: "Miss Webb was positively involved in her own welfare and care.

"She may, from time to time, have lived with the nightmare circumstances of a mental illness. There is no evidence to suggest anything that was slapdash in the behaviour of Pamela Webb or those about her."

Mr Hulett amended the cause of death to unascertained and recorded an open verdict.

Speaking after the inquest, brother Howard Webb said he was satisfied with the verdict.

He added: "All we wanted was for it to be explained in case anything came out of it that found the drug could cause harm to other people."