Daily Mail
January 30, 2015
Serious questions have been raised over why a gipsy gang which ransacked the country home of a retired headmistresses minutes before she died from a stroke have not been prosecuted over her death.
Hester Mottershead, 90, had frantically phoned 999 after four burglars dressed in blue boiler suits turned up at her £550,000 detached home in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, claiming to be water board officials.
An inquest into Miss Mottershead’s death heard how one of the men pretended to inspect her taps, as three others turned over her property, before fleeing with a haul of valuables.
But by the time officers arrived after the incident in August 2012, the elderly woman had collapsed and was rushed to hospital, where she died 24 hours later.
Police launched a murder inquiry and a string of specialists said the stroke was extremely likely to have been caused by the stress of the raid.
But, one year later, manslaughter charges against the four men were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service, due to an alleged lack of medical evidence.
Instead, the gang – who lived on caravan sites in Warwickshire and Leicestershire – were jailed for burglary.
Black Country senior coroner Zafar Siddique has now questioned why the CPS dropped the charges relating to the ‘absolute tragedy’ of Miss Mottershead’s death.
Speaking at Sandwell Coroners’ Court on Tuesday at the inquest, Mr Siddique said he believed the actions of the gang had caused Miss Mottershead’s fatal stroke ‘on the balance of probability’.