Elizabeth OHare

Elizabeth O'Hare died from a fractured skull at Marylebone Police Station.

She had been arrested for being drunk, it being later found that she had drunk the equivalent of eight pints of beer.

She had lived in Empress Gate, Kensington.

Her niece, who lived in Welwyn Garden City said that Elizabeth O'Hare had not been well for some weeks before her death. She said:

Elizabeth O'Hare's employers at a hotel in Cavendish Square in Marylebone where she worked as a waitress, said that they noticed on 16 April 1963, that she had been looking pale.

The manageress there said:

The night porter said that when Elizabeth O'Hare left that she told him that she was all right.

About half an hour later she was found lying on the pavement in Hollies Street, St Marylebone.

A police constable that found her there said that he asked her if she was all right and that she told him that she had had too much to drink.

He said that her eyes were glassy and that he arrested her for being drunk.

Elizabeth O'Hare was then taken to Marylebone Lane Police Station and given a rubber mattress in the charge room after which she was later taken to a woman's cell.

A police sergeant said that when he saw Elizabeth O'Hare, she was sitting on a bench, leaning backwards. He said:

He added that Elizabeth O'Hare had been rolling about on her seat and that she didn't appear to have had much control over her posture. He noted that on her way to the cell she had been supported by two police officers. He said:

He added that she didn't complain of any headache and said that she didn't have any marks about her to show that she was anything other than drunk.

The matron said that on about her third visit to Elizabeth O'Hare that he found her to be an ashen colour and saw that her lips were blue.

An ambulance was then called for her and artificial respiration was applied, but she was found to be dead on arrival at Middlesex Hospital.

The pathologist that carried out her post mortem said that Elizabeth O'Hare's skull was fractured and that there had been brain haemorrhage, which he noted could have had a delayed action.

When the Coroner summed up at her inquest, he said that there had been no evidence to show what Elizabeth O'Hare had been doing from the time she left the hotel and that it was clear that the police had no reason to believe that she had been anything other than drunk when they had arrested her.

An open verdict was recorded.