Eveline Beatrice Barnett

Eveline Beatrice Barnett died shortly after being admitted to the Hove General Hospital.

She had gone to her sisters flat in Hove Villas on the Monday night at about 10.45pm in an excited and drunk state. Her sister said that she persuaded Eveline Barnett to lie down on a bed but that about 40 minutes later she got up and she noticed that there was blood pouring on the floor. Eveline Barnett's sister said that she ran out into the street and called a police constable and Eveline Barnett was taken to the hospital.

She died within three minutes after admission at 1.20am in the early hours of the Tuesday morning 22 July 1941.

The senior house surgeon at the hospital said that her death had been due to haemorrhage resulting from an internal tear. He said that there was no natural cause whatever to account for the haemorrhage or the laceration that he found and added that the fact that Eveline Barnett had been indulging freely in alcohol would have tended to have made her condition worse.

Her post-mortem found that she had a laceration that was about 3/4 of an inch long by 1/2 an inch deep in places. The house surgeon said that Eveline Barnett was otherwise organically perfect.

Eveline Barnett had lived at 12 Twitten Way in Worthing.

A man that lived in Felton Road in Hambrook, Bristol, said that he had known Eveline Barnett for about three years and had been staying with her recently for about ten days, noting that when he had left her she had been quite well and had not complained to him of any haemorrhage or pain. He said that he last saw her at West Worthing Station on the Monday morning, 21 July 1941.

At her inquest, it was noted that Eveline Barnett had left Worthing by bus at about 7pm on the Monday and arrived in Hove at about 7.55pm.

It was heard then that nothing more was known of her movements from then until she arrived at her sisters flat drunk at about 10.45pm.

Eveline Barnett was the widow of a Captain of the Bombay Regiment.