A WOMAN took her own life at a country hotel where she had spent the previous night, an inquest heard today (Wednesday, February 6).

Jennifer Sara Buckley, of Marlborough Court, Newcastle, had stayed with her partner at the Hardwick Hall Hotel in Sedgefield, County Durham, on Friday November 9 last year.

Det Cons Karl Hopps told the hearing that on the Saturday morning the man left and she stayed on at the hotel where she drank around six pints of alcohol.

During the day she had called a former nurse colleague to say she was stuck, but later sent a message to she was fine and had arranged a lift.

CCTV footage showed her entering the toilets at around 11pm that night, but not leaving and her body was found in one of the cubicles by a member of the hotel’s staff the following morning.

Coroner Andrew Tweddle, sitting at Crook Civic Centre, in County Durham, said that the post mortem examination found that Mrs Buckley’s death was due to suspension by ligature.

She also had therapeutic levels of prescription drugs and alcohol - equivalent to around one-and-a-half times the drink drive limit - in her system.

Mrs Buckley’s father, Ronald Garnett, he had seen her three days before her death and she appeared perfectly normal.

He said: “There was no indication of any mood she was in, yet we discover afterwards that she was quite in despair which she didn’t show to her family, close friends or even her sister.

“So what happened, to us was quite out of context.”

Mr Tweddle returned a verdict of suicide.