Extract from Telegraph
Extract from Telegraph
The sad demise of Mary Wherry :-
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH Tuesday. October 12, 2004
MP's daughter electrocuted in botched fitted kitchen
by Sally Pook
THE daughter of Jenny Tonge, the Liberal Democrat MP, was electrocuted after builders botched the installation of her fitted kitchen, a coroner ruled yesterday.
Mary Wherry, 34, the mother of two young sons, was unloading her dishwasher and is believed to have been putting a spoon on to a metal, wall-mounted utensil rack when she received an electric shock.
At the inquest into her death yesterday, the coroner was told that every time a metal object was placed on the rack, there was the chance of a small electric shock.
Mrs Wherry's shock proved fatal because her ankle was touching the metal-fronted open door of the dishwasher, completing the circuit.
Mrs Wherry collapsed on the floor at her home in Hampton Hill, south-west London, in July and was found unconscious by her sons, George, five, and Mickey, four.
Mary Wherry, who died when she was electrocuted in her kitchen
Jenny Tonge MP The house in south-west London where Mary died
Neighbours were alerted by the children's screams and ran to help but Mrs Wherry had been killed instantly.
Her family is considering suing the building firm which installed the kitchen.
Fulham coroner's court was told that Mrs Wherry's family became suspicious that something was wrong in the kitchen after a family friend received a small shock when she tried to hang a colander on the same rack hours after Mrs Wherry's death.
Police brought in electrical experts who found that the Huddersfield-based builders who installed the kitchen in 1999 had broken a string of safety guidelines issued by the Institute of Electrical Engineers. The electric cable, which led from a fuse box to the extractor fan hood above the cooker, was only 10mm deep in the wall instead of the recommended 50mm, and the insulation had been pierced.
The cable also meandered across the wall instead of running in strict horizontal or vertical lines. Mrs Wherry's husband, Jake, put up the rack three years before her death and thought he positioned it away from cables, although he didn't check to make sure.
The evidence from David Latimer, an electrical engineer who examined the kitchen, was that a screw from the rack had caught the side of the cable.
Over the years, the rack and screw moved slightly so that eventually the screw was touching the live wire in the cable.
Every time a metal object was put on the rack, there was the chance of a small electric shock.
Det Insp Tim Dobson, of Richmond police, told the court that a two and a half inch black mark surrounded by yellow bruising was found on Mrs Wherry's left ankle, indicating that her contact with the dishwasher had completed the circuit.
Recording a verdict of accidental death, the coroner said: "1 am going to record that the death was the consequence of home improvement work."
THE OTHER THING TO BEAR IN MIND IS THAT MARY WHERRY's DEATH HIT THE HEADLINES BECAUSE SHE WAS A DAUGHTER OF AN MP - HOW MANY OTHERS DON'T HIT THE NATIONAL PAPERS but are AVOIDABLE ACCIDENTS WITH ELECTRICITY.