THE father of a suicide victim told a Coroner that she was the second of his daughters to kill herself.

And James Lund said that the medical authorities should have been more active in treating Rachel Lund's mental illness.

Miss Lund, 39, was found floating in the River Wharfe at Askwith last Boxing Day by a man out walking his dog. She had died from drowning and later tests showed she had also taken an overdose of drugs.

The Harrogate inquest yesterday heard that Miss Lund, 39, of Burley Lane, Menston, suffered from mental illness.

Mr Lund said that his daughter had been in a Catch 22 situation, where she would not allow mental health professionals to give her the treatment she needed to get better, but the authorities could not treat her without her consent. They would not section her where she could be treated without her consent.

"There seems to be something wrong when a person who is mentally ill can refuse treatment," said Mr Lund.

He said that when he spoke to a doctor about Rachel's treatment, he had told her that he had lost one daughter through suicide and he did not want to lose two.

Recording a suicide verdict, North Yorkshire Western Area Coroner Geoff Fell said that the human rights of a patient meant that the authorities could not force them to be treated.

He said: "It is very difficult to section somebody unless you have good grounds for doing so."

2:20pm Thursday 27th March 2008

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