Islington news: Teenager | death plunge | voices in her head | Allison Baker

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Islington Tribune - by TOM FOOT
Published:5 December 2008

Teenager in death plunge ‘heard voices
in her head’

A TEENAGER plagued by “voices in her head” fell to her death from a friend’s flat in Angel.
Allison Baker, 19, from south London, died after falling into a courtyard at the Peabody estate in Essex Road on September 1, a St Pancras inquest has heard.
A friend, Adam Akanel, 19, broke down as he told the inquest on Tuesday how Ms Baker sat teetering on a window ledge.
He said: “She was sitting half in and half out of the window. I told her a lot of people would be affected if she took her life. She just said ‘I know’ and that was that.” Mr Akanel left the inquest for five minutes after facing questions from Ms Baker’s mother about why he did not pull her back from the window sill.
The inquest heard that Mr Akanel had pulled her away from the window on two earlier occasions.
He said: “Nothing was working. I didn’t know what to do.”
Ms Baker had attempted to swallow pain-killers in August and had tried to jump in front of a moving car and from another building.
The inquest heard from her boyfriend that she had spoken of hearing voices in her head and that hospital mental health assessments increased in the week before her death.
Ms Baker died of a fractured skull that caused damage to the brain. Her organs were used to save six other lives.
Her father described his daughter as a “very giving person”.
He told the inquest: “She lived a troubled life but had a happy childhood.”
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid said the death was a “cry for help” and that Ms Baker had not intended to take her own life.
Verdict: death by misadventure

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