Woman killed herself after neighbours broke in and tortured her

A young woman took her own life after neighbours broke in and tortured her, beating her with a dog lead and pouring vinegar on her wounds.

Leah Ratheram, aged 20, suffered from Autism, Aspergers Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome before the attack and became even more vulnerable after the break-in.

She was found hanged in woodland alongside the Stratford canal on October 7 last year.

Eight months earlier, her neighbour Lucy Regan and her boyfriend Omaij Christie forced their way into her Britford Close flat in Birmingham and launched a horrific attack.

Leah was punched by Regan, knocked over and hit with a dog lead as she tried to protect herself.

A previous court hearing was told how vinegar was poured over her wounds to make them sting.

One of Leah’s friends, Paul James-Lyons, was also there at the time. He fell from her third floor balcony as he tried to escape when he was also attacked by Christie with the dog lead.

Regan and Christie were both jailed for the attack, but Leah – already vulnerable because of a cocktail of health concerns – took her own life, the Coroner ruled.

Recording a verdict of suicide, Senior Coroner Louise Hunt raised ‘grave concerns’ about her mental health care.

Leah experienced extreme mood swings, had a history of self-harming and had also been a victim of domestic violence.

She was under the care of Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust, and then Forward Thinking Birmingham, and was living at Manningford Care Home
in Druids Heath, at the time she died.

Foster parents, Marilyn and Steven Ratheram said she had a great sense of humour and ‘loved everyone in her own way.’

“But she struggled with accepting her problems. One minute she was happy, the next she was very sad.”

They said Leah became involved with an older man who would beat her up, and was then the victim of the brutal attack at her flat.

But shortly before her death, she had found a new boyfriend who ‘made her very happy’, her foster father said.

But they often struggled to get their foster daughter the appropriate care for her mental health needs, he added.

Debbie Moore, manager of Manningford Care Home, told the court they contacted the mental health team because they did not feel the level of care they could provide was sufficient.

She was being considered for sectioning under the Mental Health Act when she was found dead, and her care had been transferred to the newly set up mental health organisation, Forward Thinking Birmingham.

Coroner Ms Hunt said while she did not believe anything could have been done any differently to prevent Leah’s death, she did have ‘grave concerns’
about the lack of continuity in her care, and called for a review of the way patients are assessed when they are being considered for sectioning under the Mental Health Act.