A YOUNG woman who could not find a job killed herself by taking an overdose, an inquest heard.

Antonia Victoria Harrison, known as Vicky, had been suffering from depression and had grown frustrated at being out of work.

The 21-year-old from Darwen, who had 10 GCSEs, three A-levels and was due to return to South Bank University in London in September after quitting a degree in film and media, had been considering a career in teaching.

She had been searching for employment to ‘tide her over’, but two days before her death, she had received another rejection for a job at Little Angels Nursery, in Darwen.

Her devastated dad Tony told the inquest she thought the interview process had gone well.

He said: “She told me in a text. She said they had rung her and told her she hadn’t got the job.

"She put a sad face in the text.”

The inquest heard that on March 23, a week before her death, Vicky had been prescribed anti-depressants from her GP.

She had been in an ‘on-off’ relationship with long-term boyfriend Nathan Haworth, 22.

Mr Harrison said: “Several things were bothering her.

"Not having a job, not having any money and not being able to go out with her friends.

"At that particular time the relationship was off. She was tired and run down.”

Vicky’s parents had separated a year earlier, and since she had returned to Darwen, she had been helping care for her mother Louise, who suffers from various physical and mental disabilities, including epilepsy, agoraphobia and depression.

On Tuesday, March 30, dad Tony and Vicky went shopping to Asda, buying Easter eggs and a DVD.

Mr Harrison said: “An hour later I said ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ and gave her a kiss.”

He dropped her back off at her mum’s house in Ribble Avenue, Darwen, where she watched the New Moon DVD, telling her mother it was a ‘sad film’ before her mum went upstairs to bed at 12.10am.

The next morning, Mr Harrison called round and let himself in, seeing Vicky ‘asleep’ on the settee in the lounge with the curtains drawn.

“I noticed that her mum’s tea time and dinner time tablets were not there, so I tiptoed really quietly.

"I went to the fireplace to get the bottles, then out of the corner of my eye, I saw the blister packs.

“Everything went really slowly, but really fast.

“I stroked her arm and said ‘wake up’. She wouldn’t wake up.”

Her mother’s carer attempted CPR before paramedics arrived, but she was then pronounced dead.

Darwen PC Debra Frances Smith told the inquest she arrived at the house at 11.20am on Wednesday, March 31.

Vicky’s parents told her she had ‘recent frustration at not being able to find a job’.

PC Smith went on to interview Nathan Haworth and another man, Dominic Lightbown, 24, who Vicky had known for five years and had been seeing on an ‘ad-hoc basis’.

She ended the relationship with Lightbown a week before her death.

Mr Haworth told police that she had been taking cannabis, valium and sleeping tablets.

PC Smith told the inquest that Vicky and Mr Haworth had been messaging each other between 2.50am and 4.04am on Wednesday morning, but she ‘did not mention taking her life’.

Pathologist Mohammed Aslam said Vicky would have ‘gone into a very deep sleep’ before the drug toxicity overcame her.

Coroner Michael Singleton gave the cause of death as cardio-respiratory arrest due to combined drug toxicity, and reached a verdict of suicide.

He said: “I know there has been some considerable speculation on why. It is not my job to speculate.

“The tragedy is that had that moment of crisis been overcome, there was no reason to believe she would have sought another way or another time to bring about this.”