A WOMAN who left Bolton to start a new life in South Africa hanged herself just nine days after arriving in the country.

An inquest heard how Melanie Whalley, aged 52, from Murton Terrace, Astley Bridge, had resumed a friendship with a childhood friend after meeting him again on Facebook.

Without telling most of her family, she got rid of her accommodation and car and in September last year flew to South Africa to stay at her friend Andrew Sankey’s home in Haenertsburg.

Rochdale area coroner Lisa Hashmi said: “I suspect her perspective of that relationship may have been very different to his perspective."

The court heard how on September 18 Mr Sankey called police to his home following a disturbance and officers took Ms Whalley to a hotel for the night.

A police report stated that Mr Sankey intended to buy her an airline ticket home and went to her hotel the next day after work.

When she was not there he returned to his home with police officers and they found Ms Whalley hanging from a rafter on his porch with her possessions laid out neatly on a table behind her.

In her passport she had written that Mr Sankey was her next of kin and she had left a voicemail message for him and messages for her grown up son Ben and a friend.

The inquest heard that Ms Whalley, who grew up in South Africa, returned to Bury when she was aged 12. She had a history of depression following the death of her mother when she was a child.

Ms Hashmi was told she had been married at the age of 22 but the relationship ended and her son lived with his father.

She had had other relationships but was living alone when she decided to go to South Africa.

Her father, Albert Whalley had not had contact with his daughter for several months when he learnt she had left the country.

“It looked to me as she left things that she was gone for good,” he told the court.

He added how she had also been affected by being made redundant from a dress shop and struggled to find further work.

Just days before Ms Whalley left for South Africa on August 22 her GP referred her urgently to the mental health service at Pennine Care NHS Trust after she revealed she had been researching on the internet ways to kill herself.

But Ms Hashmi was told that the practitioner who received the referral did not follow protocols and instead of acting immediately, left it for consideration at a screening meeting attended by a consultant five days later.

Ms Hashmi was critical of the decision describing it as a missed opportunity to assess Ms Whalley.

“That was unacceptable,” she said, “although I can’t say whether that would have materially affected the outcome.

“I do not believe what Melanie did could have been predicted or prevented.”

Lesley Williams, from Pennine Care NHS Trust told the inquest that procedures have now been reviewed and tightened to prevent other urgent referrals being delayed.

The court was told that police investigations into Ms Whalley’s death had concluded there were no suspicious circumstances.

Ms Hashmi recorded a conclusion that Ms Whalley’s death was suicide.