Diabetic girl, 14, collapsed at hotel

Lauren Murphy, 14, was staying in a London hotel with a party from her school in Scotland, taking in various historical and tourist attractions including the Houses of Parliament and Madame Tussauds.

On June 22 she spent the evening with classmates and teachers at a Pizza Express restaurant followed by a theatre trip to see Billy Elliot.

They returned to the Travelodge in Euston Road, King's Cross, at around 11.30pm and Lauren and her friends stayed up in the corridor chatting for a while, the inquest at St Pancras Coroner's Court in London heard. But as she ran back to her room later, she overshot the door, which she and her friends found funny.

Friend Robyn Jack, 15, told the inquest: "Lauren missed the door so she was laughing. That's when she collapsed, when we got back to the room.

"She was laughing and then all of a sudden she made this face and fell."

Realising the seriousness of the situation, Lauren's friends quickly alerted teachers.

Lauren, a pupil at St Columba's High School in Dunfermline, Fife, had been diagnosed with Type 1, insulin-dependent diabetes in 2000.

The inquest heard readings from her electronic testing machine indicated her blood-glucose levels had fluctuated widely in the months before her death and the last reading she took, at around midnight, showed it was unusually high at 28.9 millimoles per litre.

Recording a verdict of death by natural causes, coroner Dr Andrew Reid said: "It appears that it was with some difficulty that she controlled these blood-sugar levels and that is a reflection of the nature of the disease and no criticism of her or those who cared for her."