THE inquest into the death of Rachel Whitear heard first from her mother Pauline Holcroft.

In a statement read by HM Coroner for Torbay and South Devon, Ian Arrow, she detailed her daughter's formative years, excitement of going to Hereford Sixth Form College and her university aspirations.

But the same statement recalled that Rachel had a relationship with Luke Fitzgerald in autumn 1997, and then another male called Ross.

Both seemed innocent enough, but a confidential chat Rachel had with the latter's father proved a turning point.

"She confided in Ross's father," said the statement. "He said to us, there's something you should know about your daughter', and he told us that Rachel was using heroin."

Rachel was confronted, but the drug use continued. According to Mrs Holcroft: "She was very up and down. She admitted to taking heroin from time to time - she called it slipping up' and this went on continually for about a year".

By spring 1999, things were looking up and Rachel had been accepted to Bath University.

However, the Holcrofts' excitement melted away when Rachel told them she was sharing a flat with Luke Fitzgerald, having renewed their relationship.

Mrs Holcroft was never convinced Rachel actually attended the course and, in late 1999, Rachel and Mr Fitzgerald moved to Exmouth, south Devon, where they rented a flat in Lyndhurst Road.

But in January 2000, Mrs Holcroft received a call out of the blue from her daughter, desperate to come home to Herefordshire. Even here, back in the loving arms of her mother and stepfather, her life was never straightforward.

"We came back one evening and saw a light on in her bedroom," read the statement.

"I went in there and she was lying on the bed. We were joking that it was a bit too early to go to sleep, but when I touched her I didn't get any response."

Rachel, the pair discovered, had taken heroin and was temporarily unconscious. Mrs Holcroft found a syringe, but worse was to come. Later that year Rachel went back to Exmouth and, although she moved into a new bedsit in Pound Street on her own on May 9, she was found dead three days later. She was found with a syringe in her hand. The picture, now known across the world, was first published exclusively in the Hereford Times.

The Holcrofts were in town that weekend to see her. They were due to meet her in The Square in Exmouth, but the meeting never took place.

"We rang Pound Street a number of times but there was no answer," read the statement. "But on the 13th I got a phone call from my mother saying a body had been found in a flat in Exmouth."

In her statement, Mrs Holcroft posed a number of questions to investigators: Was there foul play? The syringe in Rachel's left hand was at an odd angle - was there any blood on the needle of that syringe, and why was no post mortem carried out?

And a statement from Mick Holcroft, Rachel's stepfather, asked the same questions.

His statement, read out by Mr Arrow, told of a girl "fanatical about football", music and the piano.