University students who found their flatmate dead at their student accommodation have given evidence at her inquest today.
Jeni Larmour was found dead on the morning of October 3, 2020, just hours after arriving in the city to begin a new chapter in her life studying urban planning and architecture. She had been inspired to take up the subject after being "deeply moved" by what she had witnessed in the slums of New Delhi during a 10-day charity trip to India.
But at around 5.30am on the morning after she arrived in Newcastle from Newtownhamilton in Northern Ireland, emergency services where called to her halls accommodation where the 18-year-old was pronounced dead. Today Today, Home office pathologist Dr Nigel Cooper ruled that Ms Larmour died from "the effects of a combination of alcohol and ketamine".
The hearing was told that Ms Larmour had been drinking with her flat mates at her eight-bedroom accommodation at Park View before they all headed into the city centre to continue their night. But when they arrived at their first venue, Ms Larmour was refused entry because she had forgotten her ID.
Giving evidence at Ms Larmour's inquest, her flatmates at the time said Ms Larmour had decided to go back to the flat and collect her ID with fellow flatmate Kavir Kalliecharan before returning to the pub. However Ms Larmour and Kalliecharan never returned to the pub.
Kalliecharan told the inquest that after returning home to the flat, Ms Larmour went to her room to get her ID while he went to use the en-suite bathroom in his room. He claims that Ms Larmour then came into his room with two small bags, one which contained ketamine and the other a small brown bottle.
He told the inquest: "She was holding two bags and said one had ketamine in and offered if I would like to have some."
Kalliecharan claims that Ms Larmour made lines of the powder for them both and they inhaled the lines through their nostrils. He then recalls feeling dizzy and told the inquest that he went to the toilet to vomit and Ms Larmour came in to check on him. He claimed that he then passed out in the room.
When the pair's flatmates returned to their accommodation at around 10pm that night, despite all admitting that they were drunk, some recall seeing Ms Larmour lying face-down on the floor in Kalliecharan's room. She was found in the same position the following morning. Pathologist Dr Cooper ruled it was impossible to specify what time Ms Larmour died but said ketamine could cause death "pretty quickly".
Lily Mathison, now 21, who called emergency services in the morning after becoming concerned about Ms Larmour's condition, told the inquest that she looked into Kalliecharan's room when she returned home and saw her lying face-down on the floor, while Kalliecharan was in the en-suite being sick in the toilet.
"When I first saw them I thought they were drunk as well", she told the hearing. Ms Mathison said she woke at around 5.30am the next morning and found Ms Larmour in the same position on the floor.
Ms Mathison told the inquest: "I went down next to her and checked her pulse. She was really cold.
"Kav said that she might have been in a Ket-hole but we didn't know what that really meant so we Googled it and it said she was in a coma-like-state.
"We tried to turn her over and check she was breathing but immediately after I turned her over I got up and said we need to ring 999."
Ms Larmour's parents Sandra and David also attended the hearing today. In a statement, Mrs Larmour described her daughter as having "electric personality". The former deputy head girl was described as "flourishing" academically as an A* student in 4 A-levels, as well as socially and creatively.
Mrs Larmour told the hearing: "There were no half measures with Jeni, deadlines were for everyone else, Jeni was a do it now and do it to perfection person."
She added: "[Jeni's] death has left a void that will never be filled and is a huge indescribable loss to me, her father David, her brother Daniel, and our extended family, her many friends and their families and I believe also, a huge loss to Newcastle University, and the planning and architecture world that she would have entered."
The inquest continues.
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