AN OPEN verdict has been recorded on the death of a depressed Bream woman who drowned in Lydney Docks, where she had her first date with her husband.

Gloucestershire coroner Alan Crickmore said he could not be sure that Hilary Aldous-Miles, 58, intended to kill herself when she got into the water in her nightclothes on May 2. She may have simply "looking for another means of help or detaching herself from reality in some way" the coroner said at the end of the Gloucester inquest.

Four times married Mrs Aldous-Miles, a mother-of- three of Deans View Bungalow, Lansdown Walk, Bream, had been suffering from depression and a number of painful physical ailments, including pancreatitis, arthritis and Coeliac disease. She was under the care of a psychiatrist and mental health crisis team.

However, in the days leading up to her death her psychiatric nurse did not feel she was a suicide risk.

The coroner said he was satisfied the mental health services had done all they could for her.

Rachel Shakeshaft, Mrs Aldous-Walker's daughter, said her mother's behaviour first became erratic when her second husband died in a car crash on the A48 at Minsterworth about 20 years ago.

In April 2009, she said, she was called by her mother's current husband, Ted Aldous, whom she married in 1998, to say she had taken pills and he had found her collapsed on the floor. She was treated at Wotton Lawn Hospital.

Depressed

Three weeks before her death, Mrs Aldous-Miles was "very depressed and wouldn't eat or get out of bed" said her daughter. But the crisis team decided not to admit her to hospital.

On April 27, said Mrs Shakeshaft, her mother was "very unhappy and depressed" and that was the last time she saw her.

Asked by the coroner if she was shocked at her mother's death she replied "I was shocked but not entirely surprised."

Mr Aldous said on Saturday May 1, he and his wife had a normal day and went to bed at 10,30pm. When he woke at 7.20am the next morning his wife was not there and the car had gone. He rang police to report her missing and was told later that morning that she had been found dead in the Docks.

"We both knew the Docks very well," he said. "It was the place where we went on our first date and we had been there many times over the years."

Asked if he was surprised at her death, he said "Yes, very much so. It just came out of the blue. She had said nothing to me to make me think she was contemplating harming herself."

Recording his verdict the coroner said it was significant she had gone to the Docks in her nightdress and had placed her shoes and spectacles neatly on the dockside. He was satisfied she had entered the water voluntarily and took the actions which led to her death but he could not be sure that she intended to end her life when she did it.