Barnoldswick woman's suicide after six year battle with cancer (From Burnley and Pendle Citizen)

Barnoldswick woman's suicide after six year battle with cancer

10:00pm Tuesday 3rd February 2009

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A WOMAN killed herself because she couldn’t live anymore with terminal cancer, an inquest heard.

Burnley Coroner’s Court was told Lesley Karen Earnshaw, 54, was diagnosed with an ovarian cyst around six years ago which later developed into terminal cancer.

And the pain became so bad that last August, Mrs Earnshaw, of East Avenue, Barnoldswick, took a deliberate overdose of tablets.

Her husband Keith told the hearing that she had received chemotherapy treatment over the years but that it had appeared to fail to work, leaving her depressed.

He said: “Sometimes she was okay but sometimes she was not so good - it depended on the chemo.

“She had always said that she would not let the cancer kill her and after the last diagnosis she said she was having no more chemo.”

He said that, following the unsuccessful treatment, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Mr Earnshaw added: “She said when the time was right she was going to take an overdose.

“Eventually, on the day, something else went wrong. Her brother-in-law had been diagnosed with terminal cancer too and she was down.

“She said ‘I am sorry, I am so tired, I am going to do it tonight’.

“We sat there all day crying and eventually late on at night we went to bed and she took all those pills.”

Mrs Earnshaw also wrote notes to family before she died, he said.

However, Mrs Earnshaw’s death led police to interview her grieving husband, although no criminal charges were brought.

Dr Zuhir Twage, a pathologist at Burnley General Hospital, said Mrs Earnshaw had clearly been suffering from ovarian cancer.

She had died from an overdose, he confirmed.

East Lancashire coroner Richard Taylor returned a verdict of suicide.

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