Sally Clark, the solicitor wrongly convicted of killing two of her children, died accidentally from acute alcohol intoxication, a coroner ruled yesterday. Caroline Beasley-Murray said that there was no evidence that Mrs Clark, 42, intended to commit suicide.

She was found dead at her home in Hatfield Peverel, Essex, in March, four years after being acquitted on appeal of murdering her two baby sons.

What the coroner called the tragic history of events leading to her death began in 1999 when Mrs Clark was found guilty after a trial at Chester Crown Court of murdering her sons, eight-week-old Harry and 11-week-old Christopher. She was given two life sentences. She spent three years in jail before being cleared by the Court of Appeal in 2003, but she never recovered from her ordeal, and suffered serious psychological problems.

John Pheby, the coroner’s officer, told the inquest at Chelmsford, Essex, that Mrs Clark had been found in bed, apparently not breathing, by her cleaner on March 16. Paramedics were called and confirmed that she was dead. Postmortem tests showed a concentration of alcohol in her blood that was five times the drink-drive limit.

David Rouse, a Home Office pathologist, concluded that Mrs Clark had died as a result of acute alcohol intoxication. He told the hearing that Mrs Clark had attempted to rebuild her life on being freed from prison in January 2003. “According to her family, this was not an easy time for her and she underwent various assessments – eventually being diagnosed with a number of serious psychiatric problems,” he said.

“These included enduring personality change after catastrophic experience, protracted grief reaction and alcohol dependency syndrome.

“With the complete support of her husband, Stephen, and family, she attended various hospitals and clinics in an attempt to overcome this problem.”

Neither Mr Clark, who is also a solicitor, nor any other relative was at the inquest. The family was represented by a solicitor, Fiona Murphy.

A family spokeswoman said after the hearing: “All Sally’s family and friends knew her as a loving and devoted mother, wife and daughter, a view also shared by all the professionals who cared for her and her children.

“Sally was unable to come to terms with the false accusations, based on flawed medical evidence and the failures of the legal system, which debased everything she had been brought up to believe in and which she herself practised.”

After suffering what the Court of Appeal called “one of the worst miscarriages of justice in recent years”, it was not surprising that Mrs Clark’s ordeal had culminated in psychiatric problems and that she was never able to return to being the happy, kind and generous person her family had known and loved, the spokeswoman added. “The hope is that some good may come out of the tragedy of her untimely death and that a sense of balance will be restored, which will not only protect infants but also their innocent parents.”

Mrs Beasley-Murray said: “There has clearly been a most tragic history leading up to Mrs Clark’s sad death. The court’s hope is that Mr Clark and the family will be able to treasure all the happy memories they have of Mrs Clark.”

Christopher was discovered dead in his Moses basket, in December 1996, and Harry collapsed in a bouncing chair, in January 1998. The expert evidence of Professor Sir Roy Meadow, a paediatrician, was central to Mrs Clark’s trial. He told jurors that the probability of two natural, unexplained cot deaths in the family was 73 million to 1. The figure was later disputed by the Royal Statistical Society and other experts, who said that the odds of a second cot death in a family were closer to 200 to 1. That evidence triggered an appeal and Mrs Clark’s release.

John McManus, one of the founders of the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation, called yesterday for more protection for victims of wrongful conviction. He said: “Something like this was bound to happen. You get offered counselling after leaving the Big Brother television house and yet there’s nothing for people like Sally Clark. You can’t just come out and pick up the pieces of your life. In my opinion, this woman died of a broken heart and basically used alcohol to take away the horrors.”

Sir Roy was struck off by the General Medical Council later but reinstated on appeal.

Professor David Southall, the paediatrician who had accused Mrs Clark’s husband, Steve, of killing the babies, is facing a GMC “fitness to practise hearing”, which starts today.

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