A WOMAN has told of the horrific moment she saw her sister plunge to her death from the sixth floor balcony of her holiday apartment in Cyprus.

Jacqueline Essery told how she was holding on the hand of Caroline Booth, 19, from Darwen, when she slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground last September.

She said: "She never looked at my face and her hand slipped from my hands . In that moment my baby sister was gone. There was no scream, no look. I stood on the balcony and screamed."

Jacqueline, a travel agent who lives in the Cypriot resort of Limassol with husband Stewart and son Kyle, told a Blackburn inquest how in the days leading up to her death Caroline, who was on a two week holiday with her boyfriend Mark Hayden, had not been her usual "chirpy" self.

She said that on the day of her death she had locked herself on the balcony of the apartment and had a "blank" expression on her face. Jacqueline said Caroline was scratching her hands and face and was extremely agitated and she believed she was having a nervous breakdown.

She said: "We were sat in the apartment and I saw Caroline had moved away from the patio door. I ran to the balcony and she had flung one leg over the balcony and and was taking the other one over.

"Then she let go and held on to the wall. I grabbed hold of one of her hands. She just looked at the wall. Then she slipped from my hands."

Caroline, of Ambleside Drive, Darwen, a human biology student at Leeds University, had been staying at the Eden Beach Hotel Apartments. She died of multiple injuries.

East Lancashire coroner Michael Singleton, said he couldn't be satisfied Caroline intended to kill herself or that she had had fallen but there was no evidence that she had been pushed.

In recording an open verdict he said it wasn't possible to gain an insight into Caroline's state of mind in the moments before her death.

He told Caroline's family: "What is clear is that this was a young girl who lived life to the full. I ask you to try to celebrate her life rather than reflecting on her death."

Caroline's family were too upset to comment after the inquest.