A GRIEVING mum overdosed on crack and heroin after hearing the news her son had been stabbed to death by his hairdresser girlfriend.

Joanne Guy, 44, from Kidlington, had been clean for two years when she embarked on a two-day binge a week after her son’s murder in August last year.

Damon Searson, 23, died after his girlfriend Terri-Marie Palmer stabbed him in the heart with a bread knife in the caravan they shared in Lancashire.

Palmer, 23, of Warton Avenue, Heysham, was convicted of murdering Ms Guy’s son this month at Preston Crown Court.

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Oxfordshire Coroner’s Court heard last month how Ms Guy, a cleaner, met up with her friend Leon Todd a week after finding out about her son’s death.

Detective Sergeant Richard Pickering of Thames Valley Police told the court: “On that Friday night they bought crack cocaine and went to Joanne’s house. He spent the day with her on Saturday and they went for lunch in Oxford.”

He said the pair then bought more drugs, including heroin, and returned to Joanne’s house and smoked three crack pipes.

Mr Todd woke the next morning at 8.30am to find Ms Guy unresponsive and alerted her housemates who called for an ambulance.

DS Pickering said there was no evidence Mr Todd had administered the drugs for Ms Guy or forced her to take them.

She was taken to hospital on Sunday morning, August 23, and when her condition was reviewed there was evidence her liver and kidneys had been damaged.

Dr Henry Bettison, consultant in intensive care and respiratory medicine, told the court that on August 27 it was decided she had no chance of neurological recovery or of being discharged from hospital with any decent quality of life.

She was pronounced dead at 5.30pm the following day.

Pathologist Ian Roberts said Ms Guy had been clean for two years and gave the cause of death as hypoxic brain injury, asphyxial cardiac arrest and morphine toxicity.

Ms Guy’s GP David Finnigan said she came to Oxford in May 2013 to attend The Ley Community, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre in Yarnton.

He also said she had an association with heroin dating back to 1999 and a history of depression in her early 20s.

Assistant coroner Nicholas Graham gave a conclusion of drug- related death and offered his condolences to the family.

He said: “In the tragic circumstances of her son’s murder she seemingly reverted back to taking hard drugs and that has had a fatal effect on her.”

The murder trial heard how hairdresser Palmer stabbed Damon Searson in the heart with a bread knife after growing enraged at him for spending too much time on Facebook.

She was jailed for life.