THE husband of a woman from Middlewich who died due to ‘severe malnutrition’ broke down in the coroner’s court as he explained his wife ‘did not want to die’.

Victoria Sophie Morrey, who liked to be known as ‘Tori’, died at the age of 27 on April 2, after her weight dropped to less than four stone.

Doctors say Mrs Morrey, who lived on West Street in Middlewich and worked as an art therapist, was able to gain weight but refused feeding and removed feeding tubes while being treated in Clatterbridge and Hope hospitals due to psychological issues.

However, her husband, Christopher Morrey, told Warrington Coroner’s Court on Friday, September 12, that the doctor’s explanation was a ‘cop out’.

Mr Morrey said: “The doctors could not find a physical cause so they just labelled it as psychological and that just seems like a cop out.

“When a person is at 24 kilograms in weight, you do whatever you can do to save that person’s life, but whatever the family tried to do to help it was always misconstrued as interfering.

“The fight is over for the family now, but we don’t want people to think that Victoria was trying to end her life because she wasn’t.

“She wanted to gain weight; she wanted to leave hospital; she wanted to have a life.”

Mrs Morrey was diagnosed with several psychological conditions which doctors say caused her death, such as Factitious Disorder, Personality Disorder, and Opioid Dependency.

Coroner Nicholas Leslie Rheinberg, said: “Victoria suffered from weight loss but a physical condition could not be found.

“Would she have been able to eat, then the problem would have been overcome.

“The husband and father were found to have been giving her potassium tablets, but police deemed no criminal offence was committed and I am satisfied that there were no suspicious circumstances.”