Socialite died after smuggling razor blade and drugs into clinic
A SOCIALITE smuggled cocaine and razor blades into a £5,000-a-week clinic before she was found dead, a pre-inquest hearing has been told.
Daisy Boyd was being treated at a private psychiatric hospital when she was found dead by a nurse on Oct 5 last year.
The 28-year-old was staying in the private Nightingale Hospital, in Marylebone, central London, three months after the end of her relationship with Dan Macmillan, 42, a publishing heir.
Before her death, cocaine and a razor blade were found in her room at the hospital. The cause of her death is still unknown, but it was confirmed yesterday that Miss Boyd was being treated at the hospital for an eating disorder.
During the hearing at Westminster coroner’s court, Tim Boyd, Miss Boyd’s father, raised concerns that drugs had been found in his daughter’s room at the £696-a-night clinic.
The family said they wanted the inquest to look at whether proper security checks were conducted on visitors.
It was revealed that she had had a visitor who signed in with just the initials “AR” the day before her death.
Mr Boyd, a leading architect, said: “She had been in possession of cocaine and a razor blade prior to this visit and she was certainly showing other patients that she had cocaine after that visit. When I took her out, to go to M&S or wherever, I would bring back bags and would have them checked by nurses. That is what the procedure was.
“I think the fact that anybody can wander in, and when you have a patient, who is supposedly being cared for, obviously using drugs, it’s a major issue.”
He was joined in court by Miss Boyd’s mother Lucy, stepfather Charles Pullan and stepmother Sadie Jones.
Miss Boyd was the granddaughter of Rose Gray, the late River Café coowner. The 28-year-old held her engagement party at the restaurant in October 2016, a year before her death.
Mr Macmillan, heir to a £300million publishing fortune and great-grandson of Harold Macmillan, the former Tory prime minister, broke off the engagement in July last year.
Addressing security concerns raised by the family, Dr Shirley Radcliffe, the assistant coroner, said: “It isn’t a prison, it is a psychiatric hospital.
“It would be helpful to see if reception should have a full name and also if there was any thought given to an element of supervision of visitors.”
The hearing was also told about concerns over whether CPR was performed “incorrectly” after Miss Boyd was found. The inquest, which is scheduled to take place in September, will hear statements from paramedics, police and other medical experts.
‘It would be helpful to see… if there was any thought given to an element of supervision of visitors’