A MOTHER said she believes her daughter did not intend to take her own life.

Bernadette Tenquist said her daughter’s decision to hang herself was a “cry for help” and not enough was done to tackle bullying on the ward in the psychiatric hospital where she was sectioned.

Mrs Tenquist was giving evidence on the second day of the jury inquest into the death of her daughter Bethany Ella Tenquist.

Bethany, who was 26 when she died on January 16 from severe brain damage, had hanged herself 18 days earlier in her room at Mill View Hospital in Hove.

Mrs Tenquist told the court: “For a number of reasons I feel that Beth was not intending to end her life on 29 December.

“That evening we had agreed to both watch an episode of a television programme, Les Miserables, so we could watch the next episode the following day.

“The day before, Beth wrote a heartfelt letter to her favourite band First Aid Kit as she wanted to see them in concert.

“She’d had tickets to see them in October but had not been able to go due to her mental health.

“I know that Beth’s reaction to stress was to try and escape the situation.”

Mrs Tenquist told the jury that in general, she felt Bethany “got little to no help with her problems with alcohol or bullying”.

Bethany suffered from an emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD) and severe bulimia and was prone to self harm and self-medicating with alcohol.

She was admitted to Mill View Hospital in September 2018 and an application for a specialist residential placement at a different service had been made before her death.

The court heard that on December 29, 2018, Mrs Tenquist had raised concerns to staff on the Caburn ward about another patient bullying Bethany, as she said she had never seen her daughter so upset.

She said: “I knew something was badly wrong.

“Beth was beside herself and nothing was being done about it,” she said.

Mrs Tenquist explained to assistant coroner Sean Horstead that on December 28 there had been an incident which had triggered her daughter, who had also been badly bullied when she was at school.

On the night of December 29 Mrs Tenquist said when Bethany tried to talk to staff about the problem it was not handled well, and one staff member had responded by asking Bethany whether she had been drinking, which she felt trivialised the problem.

She said: “The specificness of Beth’s request was to do with bullying, and not the alcohol.

“To me, alcohol was not a problem that night – Beth was coherent.

“She did have one good chat with a staff member, Tamsin, and it was agreed there would be a meeting about the bullying – but that should have happened much earlier.”

Staff from Mill View are due to give evidence at the hearing, which continues at Sussex County Cricket Ground until Friday, November 22.