Tragic: Mum who drank from 'morning until night' found dead aged just 30 after falling down the stairs

     

An inquest heard Emma Hopwood would hide cider cans all over her home to disguise the amount of alcohol she was drinking

Tragic: Emma Hopwood
Manchester Evening News




Tragic mum Emma Hopwood fell downstairs and died after her drinking spiralled out of control.

The pretty 30-year-old mother-of-three began drinking from when she woke up in the morning until she went to bed at night.

Her good looks disguised the amount of alcohol she was getting through and she masked the scale of the problem by hiding empty bottles and cans around the house.

Emma’s mother Janet Maher, 48, from Stockport, Greater Manchester told an inquest: “The way my daughter died could happen to anyone young lady who drinks too much alcohol for her own good.

“She started drinking when she was a teenager when she used to go out to the pub with her friends like most girls her age.

“In later life she would phone me sometimes and I could tell she had had a drink because she was slurring her words.

“She always drank cheap cider and she used to hide empty cans. She would hide them in cupboards, in the laundry basket, in the toilet cistern, under the bed, in bags, in handbags.

“She used to go upstairs quite a lot and that was a sign that she was drinking. Later I would find empty cans in the bedrooms.

“I had to hide all the drink in the house. Towards the end I don’t know how many cans of cider she was drinking. “

Emma’s body was found last June at the bottom of the stairs at her home by her estranged partner, Barry Shepherd, with whom she had a stormy relationship. The couple split up after a series of drunken and violent rows.

Mr Shepherd told the inquest in Sale: “She was lay at the bottom of the stairs with her feet going up the stairs.

"She had blood on her nose and when I first saw her I was ready to 'say get off the floor, you silly devil.'

Tests showed she was more than three times the limit for drink driving and had two fractures to her skull after falling backwards down the stairs whilst unsteady on her feet.

Police found numerous empty cans of cider and numerous empty crates at the scene.

Miss Hopwood’s best friend Debra Walters told the hearing: “Emma was not a binge drinker.

"She was someone who drank from when she woke up to when she went to sleep.

“But she always tended to the baby. She always made sure he was fed and changed.

"It did shock me how she could drink and look after the baby at the same time.”

Returning an open verdict Coroner John Pollard said: “I think that Emma did bang her head on the stairs.”

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