Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Tragic Lesley fell from boat ‘wobbly on wine’
48-yr-old drowned on River Thames hols, inquest told
A NORTHERN Ireland woman who had been drinking drowned in the Thames after falling from her boat, an inquest heard yesterday.
Lesley Mcgrath, 48, had consumed several glasses of wine during her annual holiday in England.
The housewife and her husband Kevin regularly travelled from their home in Co Antrim for long stays on a houseboat moored in the exclusive marina near Windsor Castle.
Tragedy struck when Mrs Mcgrath walked back to the boat from a bar alone, having previously asked her spouse to “see her home”.
She was described as “wobbly” as she left the pub and the inquest found she was three times over the legal drink drive limit. Wearing a black Adele T-shirt, it was believed she fell as she tried to get aboard the boat.
Shortly after midnight, a bartender spotted her floating face-down in the river and with a friend hauled her on to the side of the marina in Windsor, Berkshire.
Mrs Mcgrath’s skin was blue and a doctor described her as “deeply unresponsive”. Despite desperate efforts to save her she was pronounced dead in the early hours of the morning on July 11.
Mr Mcgrath, from Templepatrick, told the court his wife had previously fallen into the marina last year but she had been able to get back out as it was around 5ft deep. Speaking about the tragedy, he added his wife had been drinking while watching tennis at Wimbledon and with friends at a bar. Mr Mcgrath said: “I wouldn’t say she was fine but she didn’t seem to be recklessly drunk.”
The inquest heard the victim had also taken a therapeutic amount of Tramadol and this combined with alcohol would have impaired her ability to get out of the water. Assistant coroner Alison Mccormick said: “I will accept the cause of death given by the pathologist, which is drowning. “The conclusion is going to be one of misadventure.”