Why did nobody find her sooner?
As inquest hears housing association continued taking rent from secretary who lay dead in flat for more than 2 years:
A MEDICAL secretary lay dead in her flat for two-anda-half years after her housing association failed to ‘connect the dots’ when she stopped paying rent, her gas was switched off and neighbours complained of a terrible smell.
Sheila Seleoane, 58, died around August 2019, but her body wasn’t found until February this year when police smashed into her flat in Peckham, south-east London, after a complaint from a neighbour.
Her body had to be identified by dental records due to decomposition and no cause of death could be established, but police ruled out suspicious circumstances.
An inquest yesterday heard police had visited the address twice in October 2020 but decided not to break in. It also emerged that in the same month, a member of Metropolitan Police staff wrongly told Peabody Housing Association that Miss Seleoane was ‘safe and well’.
The hearing at Southwark Coroner’s Court was told her rent payments stopped around the time she died, but Peabody was able to arrange for them to be taken from her Universal Credit benefits. The housing association also switched off Miss Seleoane’s gas supply without making contact with her.
Coroner Dr Julian Morris said: ‘Any death is sad but to lay undetected for, in all likelihood, over two years is difficult to fathom in 2022.’ Recording an open conclusion, he added: ‘There was, on the evidence, no real communication between the rent, gas and neighbourhood management teams.’
Police first visited Miss Seleoane’s flat on October 15, 2020, after residents complained to Peabody about a foul smell. They also said post was building up and Miss Seleoane had not been seen. Officers visited again five days later. But on both occasions, they didn’t detect the smell residents had complained about and decided there were no grounds to break in.
DCI Amanda Mawhinney, who reviewed the police involvement in the case, told the inquest that Peabody was told Miss Seleoane was safe and well by a staff member who wrongly interpreted a record of the visits.
She said the staff member had since retired but if they still worked at the force, they would have been referred to the directorate of standards.
Detective Sergeant Scott Fisher, who inspected the scene when Miss Seleoane was found, said her ‘skeletal remains’ were lying in a doorway ‘in the recovery position’. A receipt in her purse, the expiry date of food in the fridge and dates of her prescriptions indicated she had died in August 2019.
The balcony doors were open and the heating was off.
Wells Chomutare, of Peabody, told the hearing: ‘It’s fair to say that... we had a picture but we didn’t join the dots.’
The association’s deputy chief executive, Ashling Fox, added: ‘In hindsight, it was clear that there had been a sudden change in behaviour. In this case, we recognise that more could have been done.’
‘We didn’t join the dots’