Mystery of Spanish lawyer’s overdose death in Doncaster

An inquest into the death of Ana Hernandez, 32, failed to rule out the possibility that she may have been unlawfully killed.

Miss Hernandez fell in love with British holidaymaker Darren Stott, 42, in Gran Canaria and moved to live with him in South Yorkshire.

The couple got engaged and the fitness fanatic was four months pregnant when she was found dead from an overdose of tablets.

An inquest heard she died after eating a highly-spiced stew and 100 times the therapeutic levels of a cocktail of painkillers were found in her stomach.

After an initial Doncaster inquest was adjourned for police inquiries last December, Mr Stott – who had moved to Gran Canaria after his partner’s death – collapsed in the street.

He has since been flown back to the UK and is in hospital in a “very poorly state” with “physical and neurological difficulties” and was could not give vidence at the resumed inquest yesterday.

Detective Sergeant David Robertson, who led the police inquiry, told the inquest: “I’m unable to say beyond any reasonable doubt that he had anything to do with her death.”

Coroner Nicola Mundy recorded an open verdict saying she had considered unlawful killing, but there was not enough proof. However Ms Mundy said she had discounted Miss Hernandez accidentally taking too many tablets and she did not believe it was a deliberate act.

Her semi-naked body was found on a bed at the three-bedroom bungalow home she shared with Leeds Metropolitan University lecturer Mr Stott in the village of Barnburgh, near Doncaster.

Family friend Carolyn Telford, 47, who discovered her body with her husband Geoffrey, had told last December’s inquest: “Ana told me Darren kept telling her to take the tablets and she said ‘He’s trying to kill me’.”

Tablets prescribed to Mr Stott, who had been taking them all his adult life for a variety of ailments, were found all over the house.

Det Sgt Roberstson said: “The question remains, how did high levels of medication get into Ana’s body?”

He told the hearing that two previous partners of Mr Stott both described him as “unusual”, controlling and dishonest at times. He once sprayed a substance in the mouth of his then partner which left her sick on a plane after she complained of a migraine and he injected another partner in the leg with a painkiller when she too said she had a headache.

He was on a course when his girlfriend’s body was found on June 28 last year with a packed suitcase beside her.

Mr Stott said in a statement she was not enjoying her pregnancy and was reluctant to take any medication. “She was fearful of harming the baby,” he said.

Pathologist Kim Suvarna said Miss Hernandez had died within two to four hours of taking the tablets, which he thought may have been ground up.

Her brother Rafael, 42, told the inquest: “She was as fit as a fiddle and never smoked or drank and was scared of medication.”