A mother was accidentally killed after carbon monoxide fumes from a faulty boiler pipe were sucked into her flat.

Maria Ighodalo, 28, died in her home in Upper Norwood after being exposed to 360 times the safe amount of carbon monoxide.

Miss Ighodalo had been sleeping in her daughters room after returning from a christening with a friend in November 2007.

Her friend found her the following morning and after she was unable to rouse her she called an ambulance and the police.

An inspection of the flat's boiler was carried out after pathologist ruled the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning.

Croydon Coroner, Dr Roy Palmer, returned a verdict of accidental death on Friday after deciding the fault with the pipe could not be attributed to anyone in particular.

Bromley Coroners Court heard the investigation found a faulty joint inside an extraction pipe leading out of the boiler in the flat below Miss Ighodalo's flat was forcing carbon monoxide back into her flat.

Unfortunately a fan designed to inject fresh air into Miss Ighodalo's daughter's room was forcing in the deadly carbon monoxide fumes instead of fresh air.

Tony Mellor from the Health and Safety Executive told the court the flue pipe which expelled the carbon monoxide had a faulty seal which was to blame for the expulsion of such a high level of carbon monoxide.

Mr Mellor said: “The inside part of the flue pipe was slightly out of place.”

“One joint at the plastic part had not been made correctly.”

He said the resulting effect left the room in Miss Ighodalo's flat containing “massive amounts of carbon monoxide from the boiler.”

The readings from the flue pipe were said to have “swamped the combustion analyser” a device to read how well gas was being burned.

Mr Mellor went on to say that a reading of 200ppm (parts per million) of carbon monoxide would need to be reported and could serious illness.

The reading from the flue pipe were 72,000ppm.