Woman, 29, discovered lifeless in pal’s mattress ‘for 30 hours earlier than anybody known as 999’

A young mum had stopped breathing for ’30 hours’ at her friend’s flat before an ambulance was called, an inquest has heard.

Kimberley McAssey, from Prestwich in Greater Manchester, was discovered lifeless in Ryan Sheridan’s bed at around 6am on February 20, 2021, after the pair had consumed alcohol and taken MDMA (ecstasy).

Rochdale Coroners Court was told on Monday that the 29-year-old had ‘gone cold’ However, Mr Sheridan did not report Ms McAssey’s death until he texted his mother, Emma Heydon, the next morning.

After arriving, Ms Heydon went back outside to buy sandwiches for her son before making the 999 call upon her return. Greater Manchester Police investigated Ms McAssey’s death, with officers expected to detail how the investigation unfolded at Tuesday’s inquest.

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The inquest heard that Mr Sheridan had messaged his mother at 9.28am on February 21, 2021, saying ‘I urgently need to see you’. Ms Heydon called him at 10.43am to ask what was wrong.

She then asked her friend Sarah Johnstone for a lift, arriving at Sherbourne Court just before midday. Recalling a version of events her son had relayed to her upon her arrival at his home, Ms Heydon said Ms McAssey and Mr Sheridan had been drinking, had ‘taken drugs’ at his flat and had sexual intercourse, reports the Manchester Evening News.

Afterwards, Mr Sheridan left Ms McAssey to ‘get herself sorted’ and went into another room, according to Ms Heydon.

“He said he was either on Facebook, or whatever he was doing, a few hours had passed. He expected Kim to follow him not long after. He then went back in [the bedroom], climbed in next to her, but he didn’t want to disturb her because she was asleep.”

“After a while, he went over to give her a hug. He said she went cold. He tried to give her mouth-to-mouth twice. He was devastated.”

The court heard Ms Heydon arrived at her son’s flat just before midday on February 21, 2021, but no 999 call was made for another 20 minutes. Instead, Ms Heydon said she nipped out to get her son two sandwiches ‘because he had not eaten’.

“I wish that I had rang the police sooner,” Ms Heydon said. “But in retrospect, I did what I thought was right at that time. But I also didn’t feel like it was a real scenario.”

In the 999 call played in court, Ms Heydon was asked if Ms McAssey had died of an overdose, to which she replied: “Yeah.”

However, she later admitted under questioning from the coroner and Ms McAssey’s grieving family that she hadn’t actually seen Ms McAssey or any evidence suggesting an overdose and had merely ‘assumed’ it.

Moreover, the court was informed that Mr Sheridan had already been under investigation regarding allegations of assaulting another woman on February 14, 2021. When quizzed whether her actions were influenced by concerns about this ongoing probe, Ms Heydon confessed: “I just did not put two and two together.”

During an inquest, Dr Philip Lumb, a forensic pathologist, conveyed the complications in assessing Ms McAssey’s cause of death due to ‘decomposition’ that had set in before emergency services were notified. He noted difficulties in determining signs of asphyxiation potentially from strangulation, as bruising might be attributed to bodily changes post-mortem.

Toxicologist Mark Tyler confirmed that MDMA was found in Ms McAssey’s blood in a concentration that could cause fatalities. Dr Lumb said this could be a possible cause of her death, but suggested that the doubts over bruising to her body meant her medical cause of death was ‘undetermined’.

In a statement read in court on her behalf, Kimberley’s mum, Karrie McAssey described her daughter as ‘cheeky, funny, silly, one in a million’.