A FORMER drug user was found dead in her bed after taking an overdose of a heroin substitute drug.

Loretta Annetts, 51, was found at her home in Elizabeth Road, South Ham, Basingstoke, on May 1 this year.

An inquest heard that she was on a course of the prescribed heroin substitute drug methadone.

Her mother, Virginia Annetts, told the hearing at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court that they had watched TV together on the evening on April 30, before her daughter went to bed.

Mrs Annetts said: “She went to bed at 9pm which is unusual really. She was breathing funny. She went to bed and when I got up in the morning, she was still in the same position. I wrapped a blanket around her but it didn’t make a difference - she was cold.”

An ambulance crew was called and Miss Annetts was pronounced dead.

Police were also called but found nothing suspicious in the death, the court heard.

The family of Miss Annetts told the court that she had problems with her breathing and she often used a mask.

Andrew Bradley, coroner for North East Hampshire, said the methadone overdose would have been exacerbated by Miss Annetts’ breathing problems.

Recording a verdict of death by misadventure, he said: “I do not think for one minute that she intended to kill herself or wanted to die.”