Birthday woman tragedy

A MENTALLY ill Tring woman tragically died after she was found hanging from a noose made from boot laces at a hospital psychiatric ward, an inquest has heard.

Belinda Reynolds was 35 on the day she was found hanging - April 14, 2001 - at the Tindal Centre Psychiatric Unit in Aylesbury. An inquest into her death began at Aylesbury Magistrates Court on Friday

Miss Reynolds' friend Alison Hewitt, a trained nurse, visited her regularly at the Tindal Centre and said the care she received could have been better.

Mrs Hewitt told the Inquest: "Her bed clothes were not clean and those on the bed next to her were not clean. There was blood on the walls, it just wasn't a nice place to stay. I got the impression staff were very overworked."

She also said that Miss Reynolds, often known as Linda, had always been a 'big girl' but had lost about two stones in weight since her admission to the unit six weeks earlier.

Miss Reynolds, who was a voluntary patient at the Tindal Centre, had handed in her Swiss army knife and her boot laces to nursing staff. Emma Petrie. A staff nurse at the centre, told the inquest if a patient asked for their belongings back she had to give them out, unless she had strong suspicions the patient would harm themselves.