Booze-battle mum drowned in her bath

‘WONDERFUL’ MOTHER-OF-TWO HAD HIGH LEVEL OF ALCOHOL IN HER BLOOD, INQUEST TOLD

A ‘WONDERFUL’ mum was found drowned in her bath, an inquest heard.

Lynne McCormack was found dead by her sister and a friend on the day she was supposed to be going out with her two children.

Mrs McCormack, 40, had a seven-year-old son and a fiveyear-old daughter but had been battling with alcohol problems for some time before her death.

In a statement read out at the inquest, her husband Conor McCormack said: “She was a wonderful person when she wasn’t affected by alcohol and she has left behind two wonderful children. She will not be forgotten.”

Mrs McCormack had been a successful businesswoman and had set up a recruitment firm, Bolton Coroners Court heard.

But she had fallen into difficulties with alcohol in recent years and had twice tried to detox.

Mrs McCormack, from Bolton, had hoped to be accepted into another rehabilitation programme before her death but her application was rejected because it was deemed that the process had not worked previously.

Assistant coroner Catherine Cundy read out a statement on behalf of Mrs McCormack’s sister, Joanne Callaghan, who had been helping out with the children around the time of her death.

Ms Callaghan explained that her sister had become reliant on alcohol after her children were born and that she thought it could have been linked to post-natal depression. On the day of the death, Ms Callaghan had been out with the children and had planned to meet her sister so they could all spend time together.

But, when she arrived at the house, the door was locked. The family did not have a spare key so she contacted a friend of her sister who was an estate agent and had been helping to sell the home.

It was soon after that they found Mrs McCormack in the bath and, despite help from paramedics, she was pronounced dead at the scene. After an investigation, police declared that there were no suspicious circumstances.

A post-mortem examination found that she had a high level of alcohol in her blood – roughly three-and-a-half times the drinkdrive limit.

She also had a cut at the base of her skull which it was said may have indicated that she had fallen and banged her head before her death.

Mrs Cundy said she accepted the cause of death was drowning and discounted the possibility that Mrs McCormack had taken her own life because of evidence given by her family and other witnesses.

Recording a conclusion of death by misadventure, she said the tragedy could have been caused by an epileptic fit brought on by alcohol consumption; Mrs McCormack may have been knocked unconscious if she banged her head; or the large amount of alcohol she drank could simply have caused her to fall asleep.

She said: “Plainly she was loved by her family and she leaves behind two children who will always remember her and hopefully they will remember her in the best times of her life.”