ENDERS STAR’S TRAGIC DRUGS DEATH
Sandy found alone in flat
ORIGINAL EastEnders actress Sandy Ratcliff, who played Sue Osman, has died aged 70 after overdosing on morphine while battling lung cancer.
★ EASTENDERS actress Sandy Ratcliff died alone from an accidental drug overdose while suffering two terminal lung conditions.
The 70-year-old was an original cast member of the BBC One soap from 1985 and played cafe owner Sue Osman for four years.
But she struggled with heroin addiction for two decades, an inquest heard.
The star died in her sheltered housing flat in London last April.
She had been discharged from hospital the day before and given morphine for pain relief.
Her son William Palmer said: “She stopped [taking illicit drugs] a good few years before her death. I hadn’t seen her for five or six years before 2013. Certainly in 2013 she was clean. I only found out about her lung cancer in March. She had benign tumours for years but hadn’t kept up with appointments and refused to go to hospital. I don’t think she was happy – she wasn’t well.
“I don’t think she was suicidal. She just wasn’t enjoying life.” He said she had suffered three strokes, leaving her with pain in her left arm.
Carer Amina Begum, who found the star dead in her bed, said Sandy had been upbeat when she last saw her alive the afternoon before.
She told the hearing in Poplar, east London: “She was in a good mood, talkative, laughing.”
Chief coroner Mary Hassell said: “I don’t think the morphine was used to end her life. She died from a combination of two naturally occurring terminal conditions and an excess of morphine.”