Episode 1 Death Unexplained

The inquest is the final chapter.

For that moment, you live that case

and you live that life and death of somebody.

West London.

One of the busiest coroner's jurisdictions in the country,

with over 4,000 cases a year.

Today, coroner Alison Thompson is about to enter court

to solve the mystery of a young woman who was found dead at her flat.

Sometimes we are looking more at that person's life

than anyone else would ever have looked at.

It's the culmination of a five-month investigation by the coroner's team.

We are going to have to treat her as a cyanide case.

Do we know anything about where this potassium cyanide came from?

In court, Alison must establish the facts.

Who was the deceased?

When, where and how did she die?

We're ready to go. OK, that's absolutely fine.

When life's end is unexplained,

the answer falls to Her Majesty's Coroner.

Please rise for Her Majesty's Coroner.

It's a Tuesday morning in March,

when the coroner's investigation into Jessica's death begins.

At Uxbridge mortuary, the technicians are preparing her

for a routine postmortem examination.

Coroner's office, good morning.

In the office next door,

Coroner's Officer Diane Whiting is following up on existing cases.

Thank you, Doctor. Bye-bye.

Home Office pathologist Dr Ashley Fegan-Earl

will try to establish how Jessica died.

Here we have a lady with bipolar, which is a risk for suicide.

It's believed she's taken a medication overdose.

We're going to look for any unnatural potential causes,

any injuries to the neck, any signs of deliberate self-harm,

any injuries to the wrists.

If we look at this lady's arms, there are multiple healed scars.

It's not uncommon to see a few marks on the inner aspect of the wrist,

but in this lady, they're very extensive.

They're passing from wrist up to the crook of the arm.

They're also on the back and, more unusually,

over the front of her thighs, but all indicative

of a history of previous acts of deliberate self-harm

and this is a relatively common finding

with a number of suicides that we deal with.

The other issues we're looking for is whether there's any evidence

of third party violence. There's nothing externally of note,

so we'll move to the internal examination now.

Yes, OK.

Dr Fegan-Earl is about to begin the examination

of Jessica's internal organs when Diane calls him out of the mortuary.

I literally put the phone down,

scribbled the note and brought it out.

Do you want me to get the police to go and fetch it?

Yeah, we're not opening her today until we know.

We will leave that and we need to find out a bit more because...

What's the implications of potassium cyanide?

It'll give off cyanide. We'll leave it

and say we need more info.

Right, would you like me to get the police to fetch the container or...

Yeah, I want to know if it's open.

Because if it's not open, fine.

But if it's open, you're going to have to treat her as a cyanide case.

It's the first time the coroner's team in west London

has had to deal with a suspected poisoning like this.

We had a phone call from someone who lived at the house

to say that a pot of potassium cyanide

had been found in her bedroom.

They immediately stopped the postmortem examination

because there's a real risk with certain chemicals

that gasses might be given off, and that this could be very dangerous

to the pathologist and the mortuary staff.

If there is cyanide inside her, this young lady's body ought to go

to a very special unit at St Thomas' Hospital

where they deal with chemical deaths and that kind of thing.

The family have booked a funeral in three days,

so we really are racing against time on this one.

Until a full postmortem examination can be carried out

to establish how she died, the coroner will retain Jessica's body.

Alison Thompson has been the coroner

for the 1.5 million people of west London

for the past 12 years.

I've got a strange-shaped patch.

I would say about 40 miles, top to bottom.

We've got prisons, detention centres, motorways,

big hospitals, main railway lines, airports,

so lots of scope for people dying, I suppose, and certainly enough

to keep us busy with just over 4,000 reported deaths a year.

You can still get some violent crime here.

We had an excellent Detective Chief Superintendent who used to,

in the good old days,

drop in for coffee and doughnuts early in the morning

and tell me about the latest murders.

He was great fun.

And he said, actually,

there's quite a lot of domestic stuff around here,

domestic murder, and I always remember he gave me advice that,

if you ever, by any chance, do kill your partner -

without meaning to, of course - the best thing you can do

is to actually ring and say you've done it as soon as you can.

Once you start prevaricating, you've had it.

To be fair, I'm simply not at the sharp end,

so I don't have the difficult things to do, and I'm very thankful that

there are other people in the system doing the difficult and dirty tasks.

That role falls to her Coroner's Officers.

They are, essentially, investigators of that death,

from start to finish.

We have at the moment ten Coroner's Officers working for us

and I feel very fortunate to have them all.

They are my eyes and ears.

You need a strong stomach.

Having to go and deal with bodies,

sometimes bodies not in a very good condition,

I think it's a difficult job.

It's Monday morning,

often the busiest day of the week for Alison's team.

The badly decomposed body of a man has been found at a flat.

At the scene one, of the Coroner's Officers is gathering evidence

to help determine when he died.

Morning, it's John Mitchell from the Coroner's Office here at Fulham.

One of your patients, unfortunately he's passed away,

and I need to get some medical history.

Yes, at home. No, it's fine, thank you.

At the court in Fulham, Coroner's Officer John Mitchell

is trying to piece together details of Fred's life.

It looks like he'd been there for some time.

There are plenty of clues in Fred's fridge,

where the food is nearly three months old.

And he's got no other history apart from the blood pressure?

Thank you very much. Thanks for your time. Goodbye.

Well, he hasn't been seen at the GP since 2007.

He's an unknown quantity as far as the doctor goes.

Looks very much as if he probably has been there since late November.

The police broke in, noticed the bad smell, found him,

informed the on-call Coroner's Officer last night

who took the details

and organised him being bought into our mortuary in Fulham.

There's no next of kin.

He is 69 years of age.

We'll organise a postmortem for him tomorrow.

It's five o'clock the following morning at Fulham Public Mortuary.

Manager Dave Colvin and deputy manager Lenny Browse are preparing

for the morning's postmortem examinations.

Visceral bag for containing the internal organs

when they have been dissected.

Shroud - no-one goes out naked.

Always go out with a shroud.

Let's see. Block, which goes under the shoulders,

or under the head.

Just preset everything, have it ready.

Like anything else, the secret is in the preparation.

Fred is one of four routine examinations to be carried out today

by Dr Olaf Biedrzycki,

who followed his father into forensic pathology.

I do really enjoy coming to work, which I think I'm very privileged.

I'm a very morning person anyway and it's a quite morning-suited job,

so when the alarm goes at five, I do genuinely think,

"Great, I wonder what we'll have today."

There appears to be a beard and moustache on the face.

The ears are not obviously pierced.

Fingernails are 2-3mm.

I really enjoy doing postmortems.

And I quite enjoy the Coroner's Court side of it.

I just enjoy doing the practical side of things.

Parchmented abrasion to the back of the right hip measuring some 6cm

and parchmented black abrasions to the front of each knee,

measuring six on the left and five on the right.

'It can be quite exciting.'

When you're looking through bowel at lots of poo,

all the glamour fades away very quickly.

Having lain undiscovered for two months,

Fred's body may present Dr Biedrzycki

with a unique set of problems.

When their body is decomposed, you're just trying to make sure that

nothing horrendously untoward has happened,

because the cause of death is probably going to be unascertained.

When you do do a very decomposed body,

even when you're wearing two and three pairs of gloves,

you still have part of that smell on you for a while afterwards.

It's very hard to get rid of.

The eyes are partially destroyed by the decomposition process,

but appear brown.

I've even done a case where the body was very mummified, very desiccated,

lots of decomposition-related holes in the body and, actually,

when we opened up the chest there was a dead mouse within the chest.

That's not unusual.

The examination moves on to Fred's internal organs.

You can just see part of the liver which,

instead of being a lovely mahogany brown colour,

is a very pale yellow colour.

So this, to me, already says that this man

is suffering from cirrhosis of the liver.

Now, lots of causes for that but, unfortunately, in this country,

by far the most common cause is drinking alcohol to excess.

At Fred's flat, there was plenty of evidence of sustained alcohol use.

So I've just started the internal examination,

I've had a couple of helpful findings.

I've opened the stomach,

there's a lot of black, altered blood in there.

It's all looking very good for a significant gastric bleed

due to cirrhosis of the liver.

Unusually in cases of severe decomposition,

establishing a cause of death is looking possible.

Fred will remain in the mortuary team's care

while the search for his next of kin continues.

Deep freeze at minus 20...

..can hold a body for...

..indefinitely.

The longest I think we've ever held onto an individual

was about two years.

Over 600 inquests a year are held at West London Coroner's Court.

These cases are the formal record of how, when and where people died.

She was aged only 28

and she had been found in a state of collapse at her home.

A note found near to her

suggested that she'd taken an overdose of medication.

Today, Alison is hearing the inquest of a young woman

who appears to have taken her own life.

More than one in seven of our verdicts in west London

is one of suicidal self-harm,

and it has been as high as one in five.

Hello, ma'am.

Thanks very much for doing all this extra work on it.

It's really very helpful. And we've got the original note now,

-found by her dog-walker...

-Yes.

..saying, "Do not resuscitate."

Now she has Petra's suicide note, the coroner will able to decide

not only how she died, but whether she meant to take her own life.

Petra was the second-youngest of Peter's four daughters.

She died just before Christmas.

She was a lovely little, friendly girl, very sharp.

Several people wrote to us at the time of her death.

They said she brought joy into a room.

And she did. She was that sort of girl.

Very, very much loved.

By all of us.

At the age of 13, she contracted anorexia,

which is a form of depression.

Finally, at the end of last year,

she'd had enough of trying to get better.

She'd managed to get, through the Internet,

some pretty nasty antidepressants,

to the tune of 300.

One morning my wife was rung up, to be told that

she'd been found in her bedroom, on the floor, totally unconscious.

She was in the Charing Cross resuscitation unit,

absolutely fantastic doctors who did all they could.

Unfortunately, one could tell she was braindead

and one would have had to make a decision then

whether to cut it off or not.

Thank goodness she died, actually, from heart failure.

But...not easy.

It's interesting looking at the poisons information

that the hospital were able to get, because it shows that this other drug

is very difficult to deal with in overdose.

So, really, from the outset, I think she was in difficulty

and I think she was obviously an intelligent woman who knew that would be the case.

I mean, she's giving clear instructions to people here, isn't she?

-Is Tomasina the...

-Tomasina's the dog?

To even sort of say, whoever takes the dog gets some money

to look after the dog for insurance and stuff.

Even mentioning the dog being due for a haircut.

I mean, down to the nth degree of detail here.

And giving money to whoever's going to look after the dog,

and giving the PIN number for her bank account even.

-That's the thing, isn't it, that really makes it so convincing.

-Shows it's final.

I think it leaves us with a clear intention,

and circumstances suggesting that she intended the outcome to be fatal.

But, obviously, I'll look at all the evidence.

John's going to take me into open court now, so I'm afraid

the rules require me to respectfully ask you to leave.

The coroner will make her final verdict on the death alone.

Petra's family have chosen not to attend the hearing.

I did determine that she had intended to take her life,

and so I recorded a verdict.

We don't tend to use the word "suicide".

We actually write down, "The deceased took their own life."

John now has to pass on the coroner's decision

to Petra's family.

We've just come out of court, having held the inquest.

The coroner felt she had no option

but to arrive at a verdict that Petra took her own life.

For Petra's family, the conclusion of the coroner's investigation

might do more than simply mark the end of this tragedy.

I do feel there could be some benefit at the end of it,

if there is such a word.

And no child or... I call her a child - she's 28 -

is able to just have available the access to taking her own life

in this manner.

If you want to buy any prescription drug through the Internet,

you can do so.

It's not legal in the European Union,

but you can do it

from outside anywhere.

I will consider whether or not there is anybody I could report it to.

I think the difficulty is regulating overseas sites.

But it might be worth me contacting the regulatory body in this country.

I think it's probably one of the most important features

of what we do, actually, is prevention of other fatalities.

It's something tangible.

Another day is coming to an end at Uxbridge Mortuary.

Technicians Cheryl and Cassie are tending the deceased

and preparing the mortuary for tomorrow's cases.

My other half, he thinks it's brilliant

that we do this type of thing.

He thinks it's really good. He certainly couldn't do it.

My son's got more of an idea now about what I do,

but my daughter thinks I send people to heaven!

Sometimes you do get quite involved, say if it's a suicide,

and you start feeling sorry and you really shouldn't, maybe, do that.

You should just get on and do the job.

You're aware that there's a family,

that their parents are going to bury their child,

and that's awful,

even from a young child, to a teenager, 20s.

And that's horrible, because life dictates

that a parent shouldn't bury their child.

It's meant to be the other way round.

Coroner's Officer Diane Whiting has travelled to Fulham

to brief the coroner on Jessica's unique case.

-Diane, come in.

-Ma'am.

We've got a young lady of 27 years of age,

living with her boyfriend, who was found dead in bed, with notes left,

and a tub of potassium cyanide was found in the room.

Although I have to say that wasn't found until later,

after her body had been moved over to us at Uxbridge.

None of us realised what the dangers were.

They're dangerous, suicides, in a sense.

-You never...

-Fully know.

-..fully know what someone has got.

So you just got to treat every body exactly the same

and take precautions.

We had one young lady who swallowed razor blades.

I mean, that could be really dangerous if you're not aware.

I think with the Internet, you're hearing of more and more cases

where people are getting stuff online

and mixing up concoctions and gassing themselves.

And, of course, anyone else that then goes into that environment,

be it the scene where the suicide's been committed,

or the body itself, is at risk.

The situation is at the moment that we were advised to move her up

to one of the London hospitals for a postmortem examination

Guy's and St Thomas', I think.

They had a detector which would have detected cyanide gases

had they been present, and there weren't any.

The chemical probes used to detect cyanide gas

at the specially-arranged postmortem failed to reveal

whether Jessica had taken the poison.

But, at the scene, a spoon and glass were also recovered.

The glass had traces of potassium cyanide on it.

The coroner wants to know if Jessica herself

left any information about what she'd taken.

Did the note give us any clues?

Did she say anything in the note?

No, they were, basically, sorry to family members.

They weren't indicative of what was in her mind.

Do you know what the note on the door said?

Don't come in, call the police.

Because otherwise her partner would have come in.

-Did the police look at her computer?

-She had used her computer

to research the use of potassium cyanide.

So we still haven't got a final cause of death yet.

We are still awaiting toxicology.

They're doing quite extensive tests.

Lovely, and I'll be in touch with you about that.

We'll speak again in three weeks.

-Yeah, thanks, Diane.

-Thanks. Bye-bye.

-Bye.

Jessica's blood samples may hold the key to how she died.

But, because cyanide cases are so rare,

the tests must take place in France.

It'll add another six weeks to the coroner's investigation

and keep Jessica's family waiting.

Yes, hello, it's John Mitchell from the Coroner's Office at Fulham.

Yes, plastic bag over his head.

How many witnesses do you have?

At Fulham coroner's office, things are proving more straightforward

in the case of Fred, who died alone.

Morning, John. Good news.

He's not as decomposed as we thought

and, actually, I managed to get a cause of death on him.

He's got cirrhosis of the liver

and a significant bleed in his bowel due to a oesophageal varices.

So we won't need an inquest in this case. I'm sure you'll be pleased.

-Brilliant news, Olaf. Super.

-Excellent.

-Thanks very much.

-Nice when it happens like that, occasionally.

-Exactly.

As Fred died of natural causes, his case won't need an inquest.

Establishing how he died has been surprisingly easily.

But locating friends and family has proved impossible.

I've been here five years. I think I've only had two people

who we've never been able to put a name on.

But we've had plenty of people who we've had to sort of

put in the hands of the local authority

because they've got no next of kin.

Can you give me a cause of death?

'Nine million people in London,

'but it can be a very lonely place if you've got no friends or family,'

and you're sort of, you know, you're getting on a little bit,

and you're holed up in your little flat with your cat,

and you never go out, your neighbours get your shopping,

and things like that, that's all too common.

They were walking, living, talking, breathing.

To us now, you know, with the most of respect, they are just shells.

But you still got to treat them as though they're one of your own.

Even if that person does not have so much as one single living soul

to shed a tear for them,

here they will be treated well.

So having respect for everyone, no matter what colour,

no matter what gender,

no matter what they've done in their lives, we never judge.

So, basically, you do the best you can, when you can.

Hello, it's Neil Sherry at the funeral directors.

I'm just ringing up about the funeral arrangements for Frederick

from the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

Right, excellent. We'll come along later on today to collect him.

The council have an obligation to arrange a funeral

if no-one else will take responsibility.

It's a statutory duty of every local authority.

It does happen quite a lot.

We probably do 150 local authority funerals a year

and out of that, I would say maybe 15-20%, there's no-one there.

We don't necessarily know anything about the person,

so we can't celebrate their life.

At least there is the vicar and us there for their funeral service.

It's the end of the day at her court in Fulham,

and Alison Thompson has some good news in Petra's case.

I'm always surprised at how many families say to us after a death,

you know, we just would love something good to come out of this.

We'd like lessons to be learned.

Petra took her own life by exploiting a loophole

to buy antidepressants on the Internet without a prescription.

I wrote with good effect, I think,

to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

They're monitoring the Internet for websites operating in the UK,

they're making test purchases from the Internet

so they can monitor more effectively,

and they say that, really, they've got two jobs.

One is enforcement to prevent the sale from illegal websites,

but also education.

It's not bringing anybody back, but it does help families to know

that it's been taken seriously and that some good may come of it.

Four months after her death,

and the mystery of Jessica's suspected cyanide case

is still unfolding.

At Uxbridge Coroner's Office, pathologist Dr Ashley Fegan-Earl

has finally received the toxicology results.

We've got the reports from France

that has showed the presence of cyanide.

So I think that's quite interesting

that the chemical probes were negative,

and yet in the blood, which is obviously the most sensitive

and the most important area, it's positive.

So your cause of death is cyanide toxicity or something like that?

We will go for 1a, cyanide intoxication.

Hello, there, it's Diane Whiting from the Coroner's Office.

Diane now has to pass the news to Jessica's family.

We have confirmed cyanide intoxication.

I know from what I've heard, you know,

that your daughter was a very kind and caring person,

and the likelihood is that she may have looked at the levels

and made sure that she took a level

that wasn't going to be injurious to people around her.

This does mean now that we can go to inquest.

Well, we appreciate hearing that news.

I suspected all along, so it's not a surprise to us.

Yeah, OK.

Thanks so much, Diane. We appreciate the information you've given us.

You're very welcome.

And please feel free to call me any time

if there's any other way in which I can help you,

or if there's anything else you need to know. Bye.

Well, Mum and Dad are now...

you know, they, they have the answer,

which...they, they knew they were going to get, I think, anyway.

But they did say it had been a long time waiting, which of course it is,

but we had to go through quite a long process to be sure.

There were times when we weren't sure and now we are,

and now they are,

and...we can start wrapping things up.

The coroner finally has Jessica's medical cause of death,

but her case file may provide clues about her background,

which could help to determine her state of mind when she died.

In the time I've been in west London,

I haven't come across a cyanide poisoning case before.

Sometimes, as part of an inquiry into the death,

we learn an awful lot about the person.

I notice from looking at the file and at the photographs,

that this lady created a very nice home environment,

the flowers and artwork in the apartment.

And I gather she was also a very keen photographer.

It's apparent that she had a close, loving relationship,

which, again, sometimes makes one think,

well, if that was such an important part of their lives,

it's difficult to understand how they can necessarily do this.

But, of course, I'm not naive enough to think that the two can't go together.

All of that background is really very important to us

in concluding how she died.

It's the morning of Fred's funeral.

He died alone and his body lay undiscovered for two months.

Without family or friends, it's been left to the local authority

and undertakers to arrange the service.

But the pews at Mortlake Crematorium are not entirely empty.

Fred's neighbour, Novlette, who lived upstairs,

and her mother are here to pay their respects.

We've come to say farewell to...

..you called him Fred, your neighbour?

To trust him to God.

Let's do so by starting with a prayer.

The thing is, I didn't really know him that well.

We was neighbours, so he lived downstairs from me,

so I'd see him in passing, really.

Once I hadn't seen him for maybe about a week or so,

so I rang the doorbell, and when he opened the door he said,

"Oh, no, don't worry about me, dear. I'm fine."

You told me how he used to pick up your mail in the morning so,

although he has no relatives, he has people that knew him.

Once in a while, I would hear that he's on the phone,

so I always used to think, "Oh, that's nice, he's speaking to his family."

But it was actually probably just,

you know, somebody from the electricity company.

Now we say goodbye.

It was over the Christmas period,

so I'd noticed his post was sort of piling up.

Every day I would ring the doorbell, just at different times,

just to see if he had come home, but he wasn't answering the door.

One evening I came home, and there was just this horrendous smell,

you know, the worst smell I've ever experienced in my life.

You know, I just knew something wasn't right there.

I even felt really guilty because, you know,

I was here in my front room, you know, just living life,

just going about my daily business, really and, you know,

having friends and family round, and things like that.

And all the time he was just down there, it's just horrible to think.

It's just not right.

To me, it was a beautiful send-off.

I don't know much about him personally,

but I could only imagine he could be happy with that.

And I feel as though his dignity,

that, you know, that was actually...

..regained if anything, you know.

Thursday, 14th July.

The West London Coroner's five-month investigation

into the sudden death of Jessica is reaching its conclusion.

Today, the inquest is being heard in court.

It's a legal process steeped in history.

Things have changed gradually over the last 800 years.

For example, we now can't hear inquests in public houses,

which is rather a shame.

We don't go through the whole palaver of,

"Oyez, oyez, all those people

"having anything to do with the sitting of the Coroner's Court,

"draw nigh and give your attendance, God save the Queen."

We don't do that any more.

When I come in, I set up the court.

I make sure the sound equipment's working.

The coroner has summoned six witnesses to testify...

We've asked everyone to come for 9.45am.

..including police and chemical specialists,

along with pathologist Ashley Fegan-Earl.

-Hello, Ashley.

-Hi, John. How are you?

-Good, thanks.

They have to promise to tell the truth

or swear on a holy book to tell the truth.

We have the Koran, a Bible of course,

an Old Testament for people of the Jewish faith.

The Sikhs have a special holy book

which is always kept wrapped in a cloth so that we don't touch it.

You know, it's only for believers.

We're ready to go. OK, that's absolutely fine.

Please rise for Her Majesty's Coroner.

Under English law, cameras are banned from filming in open court.

What follows is taken from the court's own transcripts.

The purpose of the hearing is to determine and record

when, where and how this young lady died.

Though the images are representative, the words are real.

I swear by Almighty God, the evidence I shall give shall be

the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Do sit down.

The key to establishing if Jessica's death was an intentional act

lies in understanding her state of mind.

Her partner, who found her, is here to testify.

I do apologise, because I know this is something of a sad reminder

of all the events in February,

but your evidence is very important to us.

Obviously, you knew her well and you saw something of the illness.

A lot of effort was required to remain

at what normal people would consider...

An equilibrium?

Yeah, it was, it was difficult for her.

And that morning I was concerned at her level of calmness,

because that was unusual.

Did you have any contact with her during the day?

Yeah, she was texting me up to about 2 or 3pm.

The night before she said, "Keep in touch tomorrow."

As I walked through the door of the flat,

on the door there was a note, something along the lines of,

"Don't come in, just call the police," or something.

And I ignored that, and...

I think, greatly to your credit,

you made attempts, didn't you, to resuscitate her.

Yeah.

And at this point it's a bit of a haze.

Um, it-it just remains for me

to formally record a medical cause of death,

a brief narrative and a formal verdict.

She had battled valiantly for many, many years

with this devastating illness.

So I'm going to formally record a verdict that she took her own life.

It's not for me too presume but people are left thinking,

"Well, was there anything we could have done to prevent it?"

And I think the answer is no.

In a case like this, it wasn't an impulsive gesture.

She'd lived with a degree of unhappiness for a long, long time.

And she was tired. And I think she made it clear.

But she nicely made it clear also in her notes that she loved them all

and that they must not grieve for her

or think that they could have done any more.

And she was at pains to point that out.

Hello. My name is David.

I'm Jess's younger brother and I'm speaking on behalf of all of her siblings.

Big sisters are truly one of a kind, and Jess was no exception.

Good morning. I'm Pat, also known as Aunt Weedy.

Jess was a stubborn little Munchkin

and she had no problems standing, hands on hip,

looking up at her dad.

It didn't faze her a bit that he was five feet taller

and well over 200 pounds heavier.

I will forever cherish my memory of Jessica sitting in my office

right over there, saying,

"Bridget, um, no-one likes boring."

You claimed that you were no role model, but we all looked up to you.

You taught us the definition of perseverance

as you confronted adversity time and time again,

and showed us the meaning of courage.

I think this is very useful for families to know

that we've pursued things

and that we may be making things safer for other people.

"I was hoping that be writing to you, I may be able to highlight

"the dangers and try to prevent future fatalities."

I'm writing a general letter

to all distributors of cyanide-based products in the UK.

I would hope that they will look at it and make more stringent checks

about the people who are asking for it.

I should have taken my father's advice.

He said that I should never learn to type,

otherwise I might find myself working as a secretary

and he wanted to encourage me to do science or engineering of some sort, or medicine.

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But he hadn't foreseen the word processor

and how we'd be required to type anyway,

but I'm still a two-finger typist!