A 46-year-old woman with a long history of drug misuse, who had also made previous attempts to take her own life, and had presented herself at A&E 99 times in the last 12 months, died of a drug-related death.

Samantha Payne was found dead in her Darwen home in Tythebarn Street by her mother on December 14.

At an inquest hearing in Blackburn, coroner Richard Taylor said: “Samantha had been with her mum during the day and had then gone home.

“Sometime later that evening, her mum got a strange feeling about Samantha, and went round to her house to check on her and sadly found that she had passed away.”

The inquest heard Miss Payne had been on a methadone prescription, but toxicology reports taken after her death found there to be several other drugs present, including dihydrochloride, Diazepam, Olanzapine, Pregabalin and alcohol.

A statement from her GP mentioned that Miss Payne had last been seen on November 27 and had complained of chronic leg pain. She was also seen by the community mental health team on December 4 but was discharged as she appeared to be happy, stable and settled.

Speaking at the inquest, Miss Payne’s mother, Sandra Fielding, said: “It was quite early in her life that I became aware that she was taking drugs.

“She was in and out of detox and rehab for a number of years.

“She lived with me for a while but was still taking drugs and she made threats to take her own life and she did make a number of attempts to end her life.

“In the last 12 months she had attended A&E 99 times.

“In November I managed to get her a house in Darwen and visited her every day, and the week of her death she seemed happy and content.

“Although once she’d got her benefits she would go and spend two thirds of it on drink.

“On that Thursday I saw her and she’d been drinking and clearly wasn’t in a stable mental state.

“After midnight I got a funny feeling that something wasn’t right so I went round and found her. It was clear she had died.

“For 28 years I struggled, constantly trying to get her better - it’s been very hard.”

Mr Taylor recorded a drug related death conclusion and said she died after ingesting an excess of drugs.