‘Beautiful’ Sheffield teacher, 27, took her own life after losing her ‘job, family and health’

Becca Kelly was found unresponsive by nurses in a room at Forest Close acute mental health rehabilitation unit in Oughtibridge on January 6 2020.

Becca, who suffered from borderline personality disorder as well as Addison’s disease, postural tachycardia syndrome and diabetes, had been under one-to-one observation for her own protection following a difficult period over Christmas 2019 where her self harming had escalated.

After the new year it was decided by a team of mental health experts that she was less likely to self harm if she had more control over her treatment, and so they granted her request that her observations be reduced to once every 30 minutes.

It was at the next check on her after she was informed of this decision that she was found unresponsive. She died on January 14 at hospital from a severe hypoxic brain injury caused by asphyxiation.

Assistant coroner Tanyka Rawden heard from a number of witnesses over the course of two days of evidence.

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Dr Katy Kendall, a psychiatrist working at Forest Close, said that Becca’s deteriorating mental health in December 2019 was linked to a number of past issues, such as losing her teaching job when she was sectioned in 2018 and relationships with her birth family.

She also said that Becca was distressed about not seeing her birth mother that Christmas, which was her own decision but something she still felt guilty about.

Dr Kendall added that Becca’s struggles at that time could have been prompted by her recent improvement and the fact that meant she faced the uncertainty of where she would go after she was eventually discharged from Forest Close.

She explained: “For a young woman Becca sustained a tremendous number of losses. Her job, her family, her health. It was difficult for her to take on board.

"As people improve in their mental health they have more awareness of what life might look like in the future and that can be extremely distressing.

"On Januray 6 she did not call for help, and I do think that she had intention at that time.”

Julie Smalley, a clinical nurse at Forest Close who worked closely with Becca, added that Becca’s phsyical health issues – which left her fainting regularly and unable to walk without assistance – were strongly linked with her mental illness, and they exacerbated one another.

She said: “As she became more well [before Christmas] she realised that she found things unbearable because of her physical difficulties she had and the things she had experienced.”

Becca’s foster mother Rosamund Hall paid tribute to her daughter at the inquest, and explained that she had been struggling with her mental health and self harming since the age of 10.

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She read out an excerpt from Becca’s diary from 2018 where she talked about having a sense of control when planning to end her life and self harming.

Ms Hall also explained that Becca would often blame herself for her mental health and was distressed by concerns that she was a burden to people.

“I think she did mean to kill herself,” Ms Hall said. “Normally if she was having a bad time or she had overdone her self harm she always contacted me.

"But over that Christmas she said things were hard but she was very quiet about it. She told me she always wanted to be remembered as a nice person.

"Things got very difficult over Christmas and she frightened herself with that. She just couldn’t face it anymore.

"She had got herself into a nice state [before she died] and I think she took her own life intentionally so she could be remembered in that way as a nice person.”

Witnesses at the inquest stressed how beneficial Becca’s time at Forest Close had been to her.

Mrs Smalley said Becca had built ‘strong relationships’ with staff and had started to think about the future. ‘Witty’ and ‘arty’, she set up her own online card business and had been meeting her friends more often before Christmas.

However as Becca’s mental health deteriorated in December 2019 staff felt it necessary to put her under one-to-one observations.

Staff found that Becca’s self harm escalated under the tougher restrictions, and at her request and following a meeting of experts, agreed to remove the one-to-one observations on January 6.

The inquest heard that this was the right decision from Forest Close, and that keeping Becca on one-to-ones would not have prevented her death.

Dr Kendall said: “[Becca’s] self harming would escalate when restrictions were increased and she said herself that the more restrictions there were the more she would try and get around them.

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"Becca told us she felt the one-to-one observations were making her worse and increasing her feelings of unbearable distress, so we decided in a step-by-step way to get back to where we were before her Christmas relapse.”

Foster mother Rosamund Hall said: “Knowing Becca as I do I know that taking away her control and independence, which she already felt was being removed from her, was something she was not able to handle.

"It was the right thing to do to take away the observations and give her freedom to progress with her life or take it, and that is what she needed.”

Ms Hall paid tribute to her daughter, adding: “Becca was a caring and kind girl. Even at her lowest she always wanted to help other people.

"She was beautiful and intelligent. She will always be loved in this family.”

If you're struggling, contact Samaritans on 116 123 or email [email protected]