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Suicide victim was ‘just too gentle for this world’
A DESPERATE woman who went through the phonebook calling up churches looking for help, killed herself a year after moving into a church worker’s home.
Regina Platt, 44, known as Gina, had called “an incredible number of people” before she got through to Roger Penny at the Chorley Mission church in King Henry’s Walk, Mildmay, last year.
Despite having a flat of her own in Hoxton, she spent a year living on and off in Mr Penny’s home on the site of the church before cutting her wrists in the bath in June.
Mr Penny, who looked visibly shaken during her inquest on Tuesday, told St Pancras Coroner’s Court he was doing the washing up when he heard a strange noise upstairs.
Knowing Ms Platt was having a bath, he asked if anything was wrong but got no response and went back downstairs.
Twenty minutes later, he said he heard the taps being turned on and off before realising they had been left on and the water was overflowing.
He broke into the bathroom to find Ms Platt unconscious in the bath, and called the emergency services.
Describing how they first met, Mr Penny said: “She got my number from the phonebook – I think she’d phoned an incredible number of people – I think it was just that she needed support.
“She was obviously low, mentioned the state of her flat, and that she’d lost her mother. She always felt very obstructed by the local authorities – she felt they were against her.
“She wasn’t going to go for medical or psychiatric help so I thought: Alright, I’ll help you stand on your own two feet.”
But despite helping her sort out her finances, giving her a place to stay and food to eat, as well as taking her to her hospital appointments, Ms Platt did not get better.
Mr Penny said having her stay was “very awkward” for him but that she was “petrified” of going back to her flat in Murray Grove, which held bad memories for her.
“She couldn’t stomach it there and I didn’t have the heart to say no,” he added.
Asked by her cousin Angela Dean whether he found her controlling, he said: “Very. Looking back she was very strong willed and perhaps I should have pushed her harder but it was her decision not to get help.”
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid said she took her own life. Speaking outside court, Ms Dean said: “She was too gentle a character for this world and really I’d like to thank Mr Penny for being there for her.”
Verdict: suicide. |
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