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Vicky Walton

Age: 32

Sex: female

Date: 30 Jun 2016

Place: Queens Crescent, Malden Road, Belsize Park, North London

Vicky Walton was found unconscious at a flat in Queen’s Crescent on 29 June 2016 at about 10.42pm and was taken to the Royal Free Hospital where she died the following morning 30 June 2016 at 10.15am.

At her inquest on 2 August 2017, the coroner said that she died from natural causes due long-term ill health but that injuries that she had received after being beaten up had contributed to her death.

However, it was not known who caused her injuries and nobody was charged with assaulting her.

The coroner said that Vicky Walton was a chronic heroin and cocaine user and that her death from natural causes was in part drug related whilst her head and spleen injuries were contributing factors. The inquest heard that Vicky Walton had been using about £200 worth of crack cocaine and heroin every day and that she had a history of shoplifting and burglary to fund her habit. It was noted that she had attended treatment programmes to deal with her drug addiction, but that she had struggled to keep to them.

It was noted that during the weekend before her death she had been 'very unwell'. A friend said, 'She hadn’t slept for four nights. She had a high temperature. She had various injuries from a fight and a fall. I don’t know who it was with, but it looked like she had lost'.

A friend of Vicky Walton, 76-year-old man, said that he used to pay for her to do some housework for him and that she used to stay with him. He said, 'I used to pay her, and what she did with her wages was her problem. She had come to my house after she got bashed up by some lady. She had been battered. She was crying and her nose was bleeding so I invited her in and looked after her.'. He then said that they had something to eat and went to bed to watch some TV and he fell asleep and said that when he woke up she wasn't breathing.

The police said Vicky Walton's initial autopsy gave an inconclusive cause of death with further tests ordered and that when they investigated her death they found that Vicky Walton had been naked when she was found and that because of her extensive injuries and the fact that the man that she had been with at the time had answered 'no comment' to every question that they asked, that they had grave concerns and so opened a murder investigation.

The police added that the 76-year-old man did say that Vicky Walton had told her that she had been assaulted by a 34-year-old woman friend and said that when they went to speak to the 34-year-old woman, other than admitting that she knew Vicky Walton and used to go shop lifting with her, she also answered 'no comment' to their questions, other than denying that she had caused Vicky Walton's injuries.

During their investigation, the police said that they were interested in speaking to anyone that had seen Vicky Walton at any point from Monday 27 June 2019.

The police said that they spoke to the Crown Prosecution Service to see if they would consider a gross negligence or manslaughter charge, but said that they were told that the evidence didn't meet the threshold for a successful prosecution.

Following her death, the police arrested two people under caution but they were both later released.

It was noted that the Queen’s Crescent address was not Vicky Walton's home address.


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