A widow who had no close relatives was found dead at the bottom of the stairs after police forced their way into her home.

Pamela Harris, 89, was due to be picked up for an appointment at an eye clinic by South Central Ambulance Service on November 18 last year, but paramedics called Thames Valley Police when they could not get an answer at her door in Widdenton View, Lane End.

An inquest into Mrs Harris’s death at Buckinghamshire Coroner’s Court on Wednesday afternoon heard how PC Sophie Wright and her colleague forced entry into her house at around 1.30pm and tragically found her laying at the bottom of the stairs.

She had seemingly been dead for some time and neighbours said they had not seen her in a few days before her body was found.

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PC Wright said: “Her neighbours said she was frail and had trouble walking.”

The inquest heard it was not clear whether Mrs Harris, a retired housekeeper, had fallen down the stairs, from her stairlift or at the bottom of the stairs, but she had a significant head injury.

Mrs Harris had been taking blood thinner apixaban for a heart condition, but this can mean you bleed more than normal and the blood will not clot as easily.

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A post-mortem found that Mrs Harris had an injury to her scalp. Her cause of death was recorded as a subdural and extradural haemorrhage due to a traumatic head injury caused by a fall.

Senior coroner for Buckinghamshire Crispin Butler said it was not clear if the fall was triggered by a medical event or not and ruled her death was the result of an accident.

He said: “She was sadly found deceased laying at the bottom of the stairs at home around 1.30pm on November 18 having died from injuries sustained in a fall.

“Whether or not there was a medical event that led to that fall, it was the fall that has taken her away.”