Coroner brands mental health ‘one of greatest demons of our time’
A PHARMACIST who battled with depression killed herself while on holiday with her boyfriend, an inquest has heard.
Vicky Smith, 25, was found hanged from a jetty in Tenerife.
Months before, she had told of having the “world on her shoulders” after selling her horse to buy a house with her partner Matt Arkwright, the hearing was told.
She was also unhappy at work.
Yet Vicky was due to take up a new job, and had become excited about decorating her new home.
Matt, 31, said: “We bought the house together and she was very excited about it. Shortly before we went away, we’d been out with friends.
“Normally she was loud and engaging but she was quiet and withdrawn.
“We had a private chat and she felt as though she had the world on her shoulders.”
Vicky was last seen alive on the Spanish island by Matt, a cycle shop manager.
She was reading by their hotel pool and said she would meet him at dinner.
The hearing was told Vicky, of Leyland, Lancashire, was “bright and bubbly” but had “ups and downs”. She had previously moved to Wales to work on a farm, then back to Preston for a pharmacy job.
But she found dealing with customers difficult and accepted a job at Royal Preston Hospital.
Coroner James Newman told the Preston hearing: “Victoria was a young woman who evidently had all of her life in front of her and every opportunity to make a wonderful life.
“She had episodes of feeling down and had been prescribed anti-depressants – but she seemed to have been excited by her new home.
“She had been about to start a new job. Her future appeared to have been incredibly bright. Mental illness is one of the greatest demons of our time. It is such a waste of a very young and promising life.”
Her parents Alan, 62, and Linda Smith, 59, said: “There were a couple of things that she felt weren’t going right.
“The relationship with Matt was blossoming and they were moving in together and enjoying themselves.
“Vicky had talked about coming off anti-depressants. She said she’d been forgetting to take them a lot of the time.
“Her attendance at work started to suffer and she was told by the GP to take time off, to get her medication stable again, then they were on holiday.”