Bolton Woman Died 'After Tanning Jabs'

24 April 2013, 16:38 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

An inquest's heard how a Bolton woman died in a sunbed shop after injecting herself with tanning jabs - which were banned.

26-year-old Jenna Wilson-Vickers had apparently been taking the injections for weeks before her death.

She was found unconscious in a cubicle of the Tantastic sunbed shop in her home town last September.

Bolton Coroner's Court was told how she'd also been using sunbeds to excess, up to three or four times a week.

She'd bought the substance online and was injecting it into her stomach and had taken a jab the night before she died on September 3 last year.

Police investigating her death later found vials of Melanotan 2, a banned product which should not be sold or supplied under UK law.

Weeks before, she had tweeted: ``Getting a lovely tan now ... And I've had no side effects :) Very happy Bunny.''

On Wednesday her mother, Shirley Mather, told the jury that her daughter was generally happy but had struggled with her weight.

Miss Wilson-Vickers's fiance Brian Watson said she had been taking the tanning injections ``regularly''.

``She had bought a couple of bottles, vials, I think it's a couple of months they last, every two to three days injections.''

The bottles were kept in the fridge and the night before she died Miss Wilson-Vickers, as was her routine, injected herself in the stomach with the tanning solution at around 10pm as she went to bed.

Dwayne Rutty, a forensic analyst with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, said after Miss Wilson-Vickers's death he had been asked to analyse two substances recovered during the police investigation into the matter, one in solid and one in liquid form, and both were found to be Melanotan 2.

``It is thought to have tanning qualities, we have seen it before, the agencies are quite aware of people using it for tanning,'' he said.

The inquest heard Melanotan 1 and 2 were both classified by the agency as unlicensed medicinal products and are banned in the UK from being sold or supplied.

The hearing continues.