Ketamine-addicted youth told mum he could not carry on before agonising death, inquest told

Ann Moralee’s desperate pleas for help for her daughter fell on deaf ears — until it was too late. She had warned health officials that 22-year-old Isabelle “Izzy” Sapherson-Moralee was dying, and when she finally performed CPR on the floor of their home, she told the 999 call handler: “I said she’s going to die, I told everybody she was going to die and now here we are and she’s dead.”

Ms Sapherson-Moralee died in agony after a five-year battle with a ketamine addiction that had ravaged her body, an inquest in Bournemouth has heard. In her final 48 hours, she refused to let her mother call an ambulance. “She said ‘no more hospitals mum, I can’t do it anymore’,” Ms Moralee told the coroner. “She knew she was dying.”

Ms Moralee, a former nurse and now a flight attendant, spent 18 months desperately trying to save her daughter, even warning health officials that her life was in peril. “I have saved a lot of lives in my career, both as a nurse and flight attendant, but ultimately I couldn’t save my daughter,” she said.

A Mother’s Fight Against an Unheard Addiction

Ms Sapherson-Moralee, an estate agent, began taking ketamine regularly during the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 after moving in with her boyfriend. Her mother only discovered the extent of the addiction at the end of 2023, when it had “got out of control and she couldn’t hide it anymore”. The Class B drug had already caused severe damage to her bladder, leaving her incontinent. Ms Moralee spent £500 a month on incontinence pads, and her daughter had stopped working about six months before her death.

Ms Moralee tried everything to get her daughter into treatment. She used her private medical insurance to seek rehab places, and even looked at flying her to America for specialist care. But every avenue seemed blocked. A turning point came when Ms Sapherson-Moralee was arrested on suspicion of ketamine possession. Her mother believed that was the “last chance” to save her, arguing that she should have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act for her own protection. “She couldn’t walk, she was disorientated,” Ms Moralee said. “She was deemed to have capacity, my argument is how could she possibly have capacity?” Under the Mental Health Act 1983, individuals can be detained if they have a mental disorder and pose a risk to themselves or others, but addiction alone is rarely sufficient grounds. The inquest heard that Ms Sapherson-Moralee was assessed and considered to have capacity.

The mother said she felt health officials “missed opportunities” to intervene. “She felt like nobody cared about her anymore, they just saw an addict,” she told the coroner. The breakdown in trust began after a painful encounter with a urologist at Salisbury District Hospital, whom Ms Moralee described as “vile”. Subsequent feedback about the hospital’s urology department has indicated problems with complaint handling, including a lack of consistent updates and a feeling that concerns were not fully addressed. Ms Sapherson-Moralee’s mother said her daughter “no longer trusted hospitals or doctors” after that experience. “From then on she had no trust in hospitals or doctors. She was just seen as a ketamine addict and everything else was ignored, especially her back pain.”

The inquest heard that even during her final hospital stay in March 2025, Ms Sapherson-Moralee was caught with ketamine on the ward twice. Ms Moralee said she followed her daughter out of the building and tried to get the number plate of whoever was supplying her. “I was desperately trying to help my daughter. She was so desperately ill.”

Ms Sapherson-Moralee was admitted to A&E again on 24 April 2025, but discharged herself two days before her death. Her mother recalled the final hours: “I kept asking her, ‘please let me phone an ambulance’ but she said ‘no more hospitals mum, I can’t do it anymore’. So I made her hot water bottles, made her some French toast, she didn’t eat much.” She died 36 hours after coming home.

Despite everything, Ms Moralee said her daughter wanted to get better. “She said I’m going to get better, I’m going to do a psychology course then I want to help other children like me. Nobody should have to go through what I have been through.”

A Vicious Cycle and a System Under Strain

The official cause of Ms Sapherson-Moralee’s death was respiratory depression due to combined severe morphine and gabapentin toxicity, with biliary sepsis caused by severe ketamine-related chronic liver disease. Post-mortem examination found both morphine and gabapentin at higher than normal therapeutic levels, and the coroner heard that gabapentin would have exacerbated the toxic effects of the morphine — a combination known to significantly increase the risk of central nervous system depression and fatal respiratory depression. The court heard that ketamine had a “very significant role to play” in her death, which was attributed to the “devastating consequences of sustained frequent ketamine use”.

The inquest also heard from Scott Davey, a worker from the drug and alcohol support charity Reach, which had been working with Ms Sapherson-Moralee. Coroner Brendan Allen asked whether users became trapped in a “vicious cycle”, where ketamine causes damage but users then increase their intake to relieve the pain. Mr Davey agreed: “Ketamine normally starts as recreational. The dissociative factors of it mean it can be used to mask mental health, external factors going on stresses with family, work. It becomes habitual. It is very cheap, accessible, that plays into it massively. It’s not the acute effect, it’s the long-term effect where it’s done physical damage and then being used to manage the pain, it’s a catch 22.”

The extent of the UK’s ketamine crisis is stark. Figures show that since 2015, ketamine usage has increased by 251.85 per cent — the greatest rise in the use of any single drug over that period. Between 2015 and 2023, the proportion of young people entering treatment for ketamine abuse rose from less than 1% to around 6%. In 2024, an estimated 299,000 people aged 16–59 in England and Wales reported using illicit ketamine, the highest number on record. Use among 16-to-24-year-olds hit 3.8% in 2024, a 231% jump since 2013. A 2023 NHS England survey found that ketamine use among schoolchildren doubled from 0.4% to 0.9% over the same period. The number of people entering ketamine treatment has surged from 426 in 2014–2015 to 5,365 in 2024–2025 — more than a twelvefold increase. NHS drug and alcohol services saw treatment seekers for ketamine addiction double from 1,140 in 2019 to 2,211 in 2023.

Health experts warn that chronic use — as little as three or more times per week over two years — can trigger bladder function changes, with up to 30% of recreational users experiencing bladder-related symptoms. Ketamine-induced cystitis, also known as ketamine bladder syndrome, can cause irreversible damage, leading to incontinence, kidney failure, and the need for surgical reconstruction. Ms Sapherson-Moralee’s bladder was so damaged that she required incontinence pads costing her mother hundreds of pounds each month. The drug also contributed to severe liver disease, and the cycle of pain and increased use proved fatal.

Despite her frustration with the system, Ms Moralee did not lay all blame at the feet of those who tried to help. “Ms Sapherson-Moralee was a beautiful, funny girl, highly intelligent, a talented photographer and dancer,” she said. “But as beautiful and smart as she was, she was also a master manipulator. The guys at her GP practice and Reach did everything they possibly could.” The inquest continues.