Coroner blames mental health trust for delayed care leading to teacher’s drowning
A coroner found that Kent and Medway Mental Health Trust’s slow response contributed to the death of former teacher Carolyn Groom, who drowned in the River Thames after failing to receive timely mental-health support.
Former teacher and grandmother Carolyn Groom disappeared from her Northfleet home on April 7, 2025, and her body was recovered from Gravesend’s Town Pier on April 24. After being weaned off the antipsychotic amisulpride in 2022, her mental health declined sharply in the year before her death. Although her GP referred her to Kent and Medway Mental Health Trust, the case was marked low priority because she showed no suicidal or violent risk.
Family members reported increasing delusions, yet assessments on March 27 and later did not trigger urgent care. An appointment scheduled for April 22 was cancelled the same day she went missing, and no contact was made with her relatives. Groom walked to Gravesend Promenade and entered the River Thames, where she drowned; the coroner recorded drowning and paranoid schizophrenia as causes. Sarah Clarke criticised the trust’s failure to act promptly and will lodge a prevention of future deaths report, while the family urges faster psychiatric intervention and medication review.
Why it matters
The case shows how delayed mental-health care can cause preventable fatalities and may drive systemic changes.
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