Michelle Sparman, 48, died after staff at Queen Mary’s hospital in Roehampton failed to search her possessions adequately, inquest finds
A woman killed herself after a south London psychiatric unit failed to search her possessions adequately, a coroner has concluded.
Michelle Sparman, a personal trainer and call dispatcher for the Metropolitan police from Battersea, south-west London, died on 28 August 2021 at Kingston hospital, four days after trying to take her own life.
The assistant coroner, Bernard Richmond KC, concluded that Sparman, 48, died of a hypoxic brain injury, determining she had died by “suicide whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed, contributed to by neglect”.
He determined four probable causes of death: her struggles with anxiety and depression, including impulsiveness; a “difficult relationship” with her ex-partner, including “intemperate and excessive texting” from him, which called into question her mental health and fitness to be a mother; her “justifiable feelings of abuse” as a result of his behaviour, and inadequate searching on leaving and entering Rose Ward, a locked 20-bed female-only mental health unit at Queen Mary’s hospital in Roehampton.
