'Upset and confused' 12-year-old struggled to tell mental health staff of distress

MIA WAS FOUND WITH LIGATURE HOURS BEFORE HER DEATH

- By ANDREW DOWDESWELL

STAFF at a specialist children’s mental health centre were not told a girl had tied a ligature around her neck hours before she took her own life, an inquest heard.

It was one of four known times Mia Lucas, from Arnold, tied a ligature around her neck while she was treated at Emerald Lodge in Becton Centre, Sheffield.

The 12-year-old girl, who loved horse-riding and singing, was found unresponsive in her room at the centre on January 29, 2023, before being pronounced dead the following day.

Dr Fran Porter-Young, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Emerald Lodge, told Sheffield Coroner's Court on Wednesday that she was not informed by overnight staff in a morning handover that Mia had tied a ligature around her neck in the early hours of January 29.

Dr Porter-Young said that had the team known about it, “a conversation would have been had” about how they handled the situation, but she cannot “give you an accurate answer about what we might have done differently”.

She said Mia repeatedly hit a window that morning and was “quite frustrated and irritable”.