Mum astonished by agency ‘failings’ before daughter’s death

Mrs Macpherson, 48, said: “That year, we had a difficult Christmas. From then onwards, until she died, she was not in a good place. She was disengaged with everything.”

She said in the build-up to her daughter’s death, Ms Langton had arranged to meet her council-appointed social worker and had asked to have all her “observation hours” at Oakwell House removed. It meant there was no obligation for staff to have one-to-one time with her.

Mrs Macpherson said: “We were shocked that the social worker agreed to that without consulting anyone else.”

The night before Ms Langton died, she rang her mother, as per their routine on the days they did not see each other in person.

“She actually seemed more positive. She asked me if I was upset with her and I said, ‘no of course not, I love you’,” Mrs Macpherson said.

“Looking back, that kind of makes sense now.”

The next day, Mrs Macpherson was waiting for her daughter’s call when two police officers knocked on her door with the news of her death.

Mrs Macpherson said her daughter had spoken of wanting to be “normal like everyone else”.

“Beth was very creative – she was really talented at writing poetry and she used it a lot to deal with her emotions. We’ve got a lot of her poems now,” she said.

“As a child, she was a happy-go-lucky little girl. She loved to do things especially if it was something she could win at. She’d try anything.”