The decomposed bodies of an elderly mother and her daughter were found in their flat five months after police raised urgent care concerns, it has been revealed.
The gruesome discovery was only made after neighbours reported a bad smell coming from the flat in Redbridge, east London in June last year.
They also said they saw flies at the window and raised concerns about not seeing the woman ‘for some time’.
An investigation into the deaths of the 83-year-old mother and 56-year-old daughter has now found the pair were failed by care services, The Standard has reported.
In the report commissioned by Redbridge Town Hall, which gives the victims the pseudonyms Jasmine and Rowena, it is said that having been alerted to a smell by neighbours, that police found the women in a shocking state of decomposition.
Jasmine, the 83-year-old mother, was found in her bedroom, with her 56-year-old daughter Rowena found in the hall of the property.
Officers attending the scene found no evidence of violence or signs of forced entry, but did however note the neglectful state of the flat which had evidence of hoarding.
A report into the deaths of a mother and daughter in East London last year has found that local authorities failed to properly follow procedures to safeguard the at risk pair on a number of occasions
Just a number of months earlier, authorities were called to the same flat after reports of a dispute between neighbours.
On that visit, Metropolitan Police noted ‘bizarre behaviour’ and also had to ‘demand’ to speak with Jasmine who was bed-bound at the time of the incident.
Officers also observed a ‘huge deterioration’ in the daughter’s mental health, and following a number of other reported ‘strange encounters’ it became evident that Rowena could no longer provide adequate care for her mother.
Police therefore raised a safeguarding concern with the relevant local departments, but after Social Services and GPs were unable to contact the women, they did not follow up on their wellbeing.
This lack of oversight was criticised in the report, which stated that ‘safeguarding procedures appear to have been left in limbo, with no managerial overview or monitoring’.
The report added that this multi-agency failure in procedure potentially resulted in the death of one of, if not both of the women.
Earlier this week, Redbridge Council confirmed that it would be updating its ‘dealing with emergencies’ policy in light of the report’s findings.
Also included within the report were details around Rowena’s abusive behaviour towards her mother, which had been ignored during many interactions with local medical authorities between 2020 and 2022.
Other signs of Rowena’s deteriorating mental state included an occasion whereby she unplugged her landline as she believed it had been tapped by a neighbour who was ‘protected by politicians’.
It has also been revealed that the Met had shared their concerns with a Redbridge Council social worker but that no action was taken on this.
Similarly, the report found that GP’s, Rebridge Social Services and the local NHS Trust (BHRUT) all failed the women despite multiple interactions both at hospital and the pair’s home.
Post-mortem’s conducted on the women found that Jasmine had died from pnuemonia and an abscess of her chest, whilst her daughter had passed away from heart disease.
The case follows the similarly strange circumstances surrounding the deaths of Mother Zarin Adatia and daughter Tasneem, with a coroner revealing in June of last year that they could not ascertain an official cause of death after the pair were discovered at home by gas inspectors having not been seen for six months.
