A young estate agent died after years of ketamine abuse which left her needing to spend hundreds of pounds a month to deal with its effects, an inquest has heard.
Isabelle Sapherson-Moralee, 22, known as Izzy, died after her body shut down after taking the class B drug for five years. She weighed just 5st 9lb, or around 35kg, at the time of her death.
Her devastated mother Ann Moralee told how she battled in vain for 18 months to get help for her daughter and tried warning health officials that she would die from it.
She said her daughter was treated poorly by some staff and treated only as an addict, despite the fact she ‘wanted’ to get better and, in her view, lacked capacity.
Ms Sapherson-Moralee, who suffered from chronic pain and a damaged bladder due to her addiction, ‘went home to die’ after she discharged herself from hospital two days before she passed away.
While being cared for by her mother, Ms Moralee begged her daughter to let her call her an ambulance.
She told an inquest: ‘I kept asking her, please let me phone an ambulance but she said “no more hospitals mum, I can’t do it anymore”.
‘She knew she was dying that last 48 hours. She died 36 hours after she got home. She was freezing cold, shallow breathing. I checked on her and she was cold.’
Isabelle Sapherson-Moralee, 22, known as Izzy, died after her body shut down after taking the class B drug for five years
Ms Moralee said when she was doing CPR while on the phone to 999 she told the call handler: ‘I said she’s going to die, I told everybody she was going to die and now here we are and she’s dead.’
The flight attendant and former nurse added: ‘I have saved a lot of lives in my career, both as a nurse and flight attendant, but ultimately I couldn’t save my daughter.’
It comes as shocking figures reveal an alarming rise in ketamine abuse by young people in the UK over the last few years.
Figures show that since 2015 ketamine usage has increased by 250 percent, the greatest increase in the use of a single drug in that period.
Ketamine, also known as ‘K’ and ‘Special K’, has been linked to dozens of student deaths over the past few years.
Ms Sapherson-Moralee, who worked as an estate agent, started taking the drug regularly during the Covid lockdowns in 2020 when she moved in with her boyfriend.
Ms Moralee, from Wimborne, Dorset, said she did not discover her daughter had been taking it until the end of 2023 when it had gotten ‘out of control and she couldn’t hide it anymore’.
The drug use had damaged her bladder and caused her to become incontinent about a year before she died.
Her mother said it was so bad she spent £500 each month on incontinence pads and her daughter had to stop working about six months before her death.
Ms Moralee told the inquest she felt health officials could have done more to help her daughter and had ‘missed opportunities.’
Her devastated mother Ann Moralee told how she battled in vain for 18 months to get help for her daughter and tried warning health officials that she would die from it
After a bad experience with a urologist at Salisbury District Hospital who Ms Moralee said was ‘vile’ to Izzy, she said her daughter no longer trusted doctors.
She said: ‘From then on she had no trust in hospitals or doctors. She was just seen as a ketamine addict and everything else was ignored, especially her back pain.
‘I spent up to £500 a month on incontinence pads, we asked for help from the bladder and bowel people but they discharged her, as did the weight-loss team who said she didn’t have an eating disorder. Then she really just gave up.’
Ms Moralee said she tried to get her daughter into rehab using her private medical insurance and looked at going to America for treatment.
She said there was a ‘last chance’ to save her daughter when she was arrested for suspected ketamine possession.
She felt then Ms Sapherson-Moralee should have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act for her own protection.
She said: ‘She couldn’t walk, she was disorientated – that was the last opportunity to save her. They had a duty of care, they should have applied the Mental Health Act.
‘She was deemed to have capacity, my argument is how could she possibly have capacity?
‘I was desperately trying to help my daughter. She was so desperately ill. I think there were safeguarding concerns and missed opportunities to escalate and order an intervention.
‘She felt like nobody cared about her anymore, they just saw an addict.’
Ms Sapherson-Moralee was admitted to hospital in March but despite her poor health she was still able to get hold of and take ketamine.
Her mother said: ‘In her last hospital stay she was caught on the ward twice with ketamine, I followed her out of the building and tried to get the number plate of whoever was supplying my sick child with ketamine.’
Ms Sapherson-Moralee was then admitted to A&E on April 24 last year after she crashed her Mazda into a parked car, before discharging herself.
Although she only had minor scratches, a paramedic and police officer who attended the crash were so concerned about her appearance that they insisted she go to hospital.
Paramedic Sarah Stainforth was so concerned about Izzy’s health she said she had to go, and tried to persuade her to stay overnight alongside PC Charlotte Fowler.
PC Fowler said: ‘Izzy was severely underweight, her face appeared very pale and gaunt, her arms were very thin, to the point where the outline of her bones was very clearly visible.
‘In the ambulance the paramedic told me she thought Izzy was very unwell and if nothing changed she didn’t think Izzy’s prognosis would be positive.’
After she discharged herself, police officers took her home and offered her additional referrals and support, which she declined.
Dr Deborah Mayne told the inquest hospital staff are ‘very restricted’ in what they can do if a patient with capacity wanted to leave. She added it is ‘really concerning’ how available ketamine is.
Describing her daughter’s last days, Ms Moralee said: ‘I kept asking Izzy “please let me phone the ambulance”. She said “no more hospitals mum, I just want to be at home with you, I can’t do it anymore”. Because of all the capacity stuff, she would have refused to go.
‘So I made her hot water bottles, made her some French toast, she didn’t eat much.’
When the family’s lawyer asked her ‘did she want to get better?’ Ms Moralee said: ‘Yes, she said I’m going to get better, I’m going to do a psychology course then I want to help other children like me.
‘Nobody should have to go through what I have been through. Her goal was to get better.’
Ms Sapherson-Moralee’s cause of death was given as respiratory depression due to combined severe morphine and gabapentin toxicity.
Both pain drugs showed higher than normal therapeutic levels in her blood and the gabapentin would have exacerbated the toxic effects of the morphine.
The post mortem examination also found she had biliary sepsis, localised sepsis in the liver, which may have been a contributing factor but did not cause her death.
The inquest also heard from Scott Davey from Reach, a drug and alcohol support charity that was working with Ms Sapherson-Moralee before her death.
Coroner Brendan Allen asked if in his experience users got ‘trapped in a vicious cycle’ where the ketamine causes damage but users then increase the usage to relieve the pain caused by the damage.
Mr Davey said: ‘Yes, ketamine normally starts as recreational. The dissociative factors of it mean it can be used to mask mental health, external factors going on stresses with family, work. It becomes habitual.
‘It is very cheap, accessible, that plays into it massively. It’s not the acute effect, it’s the long-term effect where it’s done physical damage and then being used to manage the pain, it’s a Catch 22.’
Mr Davey said there had been an increase in ketamine users in the two years he had been with the charity.
Ms Moralee added: ‘Izzy was a beautiful, funny girl, highly intelligent, a talented photographer and dancer.
‘But as beautiful and smart as she was, she was also a master manipulator. The guys (at her GP practice and Reach) did everything they possibly could.’
In a tribute after her death, a friend said of the 22-year-old: ‘I am so lucky to have been able to call you my best friend for such a long chapter of my life.
‘I will never forget you, you crazy girl. You brought so much happiness into my life and I can’t thank you enough for that.
‘You hold such a special place in my heart and always will. I love you so much forever.’
For advice and support with drug addiction, the NHS recommends contacting a GP or calling Talk To Frank on 0300 1236600.
