A school worker tormented by an 'innocuous' incident from her childhood was found dead in a Travelodge after convincing her parents she was seeing a friend, an inquest has heard. Rebecca Blezard suffered a 'mental block' following an incident in her youth which she spent years blaming herself for, South Manchester Coroners Court heard on Wednesday (March 22).
The 36-year-old, from Oldham, had been living in Wakefield while working as an inclusion manager at a school in West Yorkshire. But her mental health spiralled from September 2020, before Ms Blezard eventually moved back in with her mum and dad.
Health professionals told the court Ms Blezard constantly claimed she no longer wanted to be alive, and she was found stood on the hard shoulder of a motorway just weeks before her death. Ms Blezard's parents had hoped she was turning a corner when in May 2022 she announced she was meeting a friend for a night out in Manchester city centre, where she would stay in a Travelodge.
Yet Ms Blezard had instead booked a room at the hotel in Audenshaw, Tameside, where she stayed for three nights before being found dead by a member of staff. Her father, James Blezard, told the court he first became aware of his daughter's mental health issues when receiving a call from her workplace in September 2020.
Ms Blezard took time off work and returned to a property she owned in Oldham before travelling back to Wakefield, but she was admitted to A&E after suffering with her mental health in December 2020. Two months later, Ms Blezard decided to sell her house in Oldham before meeting a partner in Rotherham.
Mr Blezard told the court his daughter 'seemed very happy at the time', as the couple bought a property together, but in September 2021 she returned to her parents' home in Oldham. "She felt she couldn't carry on," Mr Blezard said.
"She came to us and that's when we knew the full impact of her mental condition. She wanted us to take her to A&E so she could be admitted to hospital."
The court heard Ms Blezard spent around eight weeks at a hospital in Barnsley, where she was 'in absolute distress' and would 'cry her eyes out' during visits from her family. Following her discharge, Ms Blezard went back to live with her parents in Oldham.
Mr Blezard said: "Rebecca had a way of keeping things to herself. She didn't want to alarm us. But she was in distress every day, she told us she didn't want to be here. On numerous occasions she said she wanted to kill herself."
The inquest heard Ms Blezard began to have sessions with private therapist, Dr Karin Adamson. Dr Adamson explained how an incident in her client's childhood had become 'a block' in her mind.
"She couldn't make decisions," she said. "There was something going on that she was not able to break. [Her] mum told me that something happened when she was younger that she carried a lot of guilt and blame for."
Assistant coroner Adrian Farrow described the incident referred to as something 'relatively innocuous sounding' which took place when she was 10 or 11 years old. Ms Blezard returned to Rotherham for a short time before coming back to her parents' in early 2022, while her mental health continued to struggle.
Ms Blezard spent eight days in hospital in early March 2022, where her parents noticed she seemed to be 'worse' on the ward than at home. Her mum, Elizabeth Fraser, said: "I could see we were losing her - we were desperate."
Following her discharge from hospital, Ms Blezard was given ongoing care from teams at Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, while she also had therapy sessions with Dr Adamson. Yet her mental health continued to suffer, with psychiatrists told of other attempts to harm herself, and on April 28 she was found by police on the hard shoulder of a motorway.
The court heard that in the last month of her life, Ms Blezard regularly saw friends and family as they tried to help improve her condition, but she continued to tell medical professionals she no longer wanted to be alive. Discussing a visit on May 11, Nicola Madden, interim team manager at Oldham Home Treatment Team, said: "She felt it was selfish that [her family and friends] wanted her to live.
"She had spoken about visiting Switzerland [for euthanasia] but realised it was not an easy way out." Dr Manoj Kumar, consultant psychiatrist, increased Ms Blezard's dose of anti-depressants in the months before she died - and told the court it was 'surprising' that it had not seemed to work.
Lesley Smith, from Pennine Care, admitted following a review that Ms Blezard's dosages could have been increased more quickly - but Mr Farrow ruled there was no evidence to suggest this would have stopped her death. In one of her final conversations before her death, assessment coordinator Sahira Afzal said Ms Blezard 'recognised she was unwell and there was scope to get better', but the inquest heard she had been secretly plotting her death at the same time.
Last May, Ms Blezard told her family she was going to see a friend who she had previously met at hospital. She said she would be going on a night out with her in Manchester on May 18, and showed her parents a Travelodge booking for the hotel at Piccadilly, the court heard.
But Ms Blezard had actually booked a room at the Travelodge in Audenshaw alone, while she had also arranged to purchase an item which could have been used to harm herself. Believing their daughter could be turning a corner by socialising in the city centre, Ms Blezard's parents agreed to the stay, and later agreed to her extending it for two further nights.
On the morning of May 21, Ms Blezard sent two texts to her mum, with the second insisting she would return home that afternoon. Travelodge staff entered her room after 2pm following check-out time, and found Ms Blezard dead.
Police discovered notes in her room, including one apologising to the person who would find her, and a series of notes to loved ones. The court heard one of the notes included Ms Blezard describing how her 'mind has literally snapped', while another requested she was not resuscitated.
Mr Farrow concluded Ms Blezard's death had been the result of suicide. He said: "Rebecca was adept at presenting a public face even in her most desperate times, which masked the true depth of her despair."
Describing his daughter in court, Mr Blezard said: "Rebecca was a very caring person. She was fun to be with, she had many friends, she liked to be social. Everybody that met her immediately took to her and she took to them.
"She did tend to look after people more than herself. She was absolutely, as far as I'm concerned, an amazing person and we have been told by many of her friends exactly the same thing."
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