A pensioner's bedroom was a scene of 'carnage' after she fell from a step-ladder, suffering injuries which led to her death, an inquest heard.

David John, of Park Hill, Wheatley, told the Oxford inquest he went to his mother Winifred's flat at Farm Close, Wheatley, on January 25 after she phoned him for help.

He found his mother lying motionless on the bed and the room covered in blood.

"It was quite horrific, as if it were a scene of carnage. When we went in we could see blood everywhere, on the carpet, on the walls and in the bathroom."

Mrs John, 86, was taken to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital but died from her injuries three days later.

The inquest heard Mrs John had also fallen and hit her head on the pavement in Wheatley in December.

That fall had left her totally blind and with a tendency to become confused and aggressive. A set of kitchen steps had been found by the side of the wardrobe in Mrs John's room after her fatal fall. She may have been standing on these when she fell and hit her head.

Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner recorded a verdict of accidental death.

He told the court: "It is clear that Mrs John had become confused as a result of a recent injury.

"One manifestation of this was a continual loss of money.

"It is possible that she remembered that she may have put some on top of the wardrobe and fell trying to retrieve it."

Story date: Thursday 04 February

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