ROSE INNS, 86, HAD HER CAREPHONE REMOVED AFTER HEARING VOICES

THE family of a grandmother tried desperately to save her from her burning home, an inquest heard.

Rose Inns, who was described in court as “a heavy but careful smoker” died in January after a fire broke out in her bungalow.

The 86-year-old lived alone in Crosland Moor and her daughter, Mandy Inns, had moved next door to care for her full-time.

After midnight on January 8, Mandy and her boyfriend, Patrick Walsh, heard several loud bangs before neighbour Kerr Singh alerted the couple about the fire.

In a statement Mandy said: “I went into my kitchen to get a torch.

“I tried to break my mother’s bedroom window with my torch but I couldn’t.”

Patrick had sprinted into the house but the smoke was too strong. He took a coffee table from the living room and smashed a window in an attempt to release some of the smoke.

“But he collapsed on the living room floor,” Mandy added. “I asked the male to help me drag him out.”

Firefighters later found Rose’s body in a corner of the bedroom opposite the seat of the fire.

A postmortem revealed the grandmother of 14 died from smoke inhalation and burns.

In spring 2016 Rose had overdosed on sleeping pills after experiencing paranoid delusions and hallucinations and sleeping problems, Bradford Coroner’s Court heard yesterday.

She told mental health workers that she was not sure why Rose overdosed and but she would never mean to hurt her family.

The retired mill worker, whose husband Geoff died 16 years ago, was still physically able when her daughter became her full-time carer.

She was prescribed medication for her illness which doctors thought may have been early vascular dementia, but would rarely take it and refused to go into psychiatric care.

Kirklees Council’s carephone system, which can automatically call a safety team if a smoke alarm or carbon monoxide detector is activated, was installed in the bungalow until December 2016.

But in her delusions Rose, who would also hear voices, would often turn off the electricity thinking that she was being monitored via cables in the walls. Eventually she requested to have the life-saving system removed.

Her granddaughter Debbie Greenaway-Duncan, who lived with her grandmother until she was sixyears-old, said: “I feel like I have let down my gran.

“She looked after me so much when I was younger and I wasn’t able to do the same for her.”

Senior coroner Martin Fleming, who reassured Rose’s family that they were not to blame, came to a narrative conclusion with tears in his eyes.

Describing Rose’s death as a tragedy, he said: “Although the cause of the fire remains unclear, it is more likely than not that she started the fire inadvertently in a moment of confusion.”