Girl, 12, died just three weeks after being sent to mental health unit

Senior coroner Tanyka Rawden told jurors at the Sheffield Medico-Legal Centre that the schoolgirl had ended up at the Sheffield Children’s Hospital after her family had taken her to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham on December 31, 2023.

Dr Aiesha BaMashmous, a child and adolescent psychiatry consultant, told the inquest she was taken to the A&E after she had attempted to get knives from the kitchen and had fought her mother, who attempted to stop her.

The consultant also described how Ms Lucas was hearing voices telling her she needed to go to heaven or something would happen to her relatives and hallucinating.

She told the jury this behaviour had got worse and her personality had changed in the months leading up to New Year’s Eve.

Dr BaMashmous explained to the jury how the child's behaviour continued to be agitated and irritable in the hospital and she had to be given a sedative.

Ms Lucas was admitted to the hospital and sectioned under the Mental Health Act on January 4 after an assessment found she was suffering an "acute psychotic episode" and was a risk to herself or others.

Asked by the coroner if she had a view on what caused the 12-year-old to have such a psychotic episode, Dr BaMashmous said there could be a number of factors and noted that she had suffered both verbal and physical bullying at school and had moved home recently.

The consultant told the jury: "Maybe she was quite overwhelmed and that could have added to her presentation."

Dr BaMashmous described how the schoolgirl had continued to hallucinate and make attempts at harming herself while she was in hospital in Nottingham.

She also noted how psychiatric staff asked paediatric colleagues to carry out tests to make sure there was no physical illness which could explain her psychotic behaviour.

Rebecca Keating, a clinical director at the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, explained how the Becton Centre was chosen for Ms Lucas' admission because it was one of the few units that accepts patients under 13 years old, but it did not have a bed available until January 9, when she was transferred.

The coroner told the jury of seven women and five men that she wanted them to think about three things over the 10 days of the hearing.

She said the first was "Mia’s mental health history, including the cause of her behaviour".

The second was the placement of the young girl at the Becton Centre and the third was the care she received at that centre "including risk assessments around self-harm".

Her mother, Chloe Hayes, sat in the public gallery listening to the first day of the inquest with a number of members of her family.

Ms Hayes has described previously how her daughter was interested in singing, drawing, crafts and horse riding and how she had ambitions to either open her own beauty salon or become a vet.

She sat with a knitted doll and a photograph of her daughter with a horse.

The coroner asked if she could see both, and Ms Hayes explained that the doll was a representation of her daughter in her riding clothes, made by a mother of one of her friends.

Ms Rawden said: "What a fantastic thing to have."

The inquest was adjourned until Tuesday.

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