A PENSIONER who died when she jumped off a motorway bridge feared she was ‘becoming a burden’ to her husband, an inquest heard.

Rosemary Carr, of Ashfield Close, Barrowford, suffered multiple injuries after jumping from the M65 bridge near Reedyford Road on November 8 last year.

East Lancashire coroner Richard Taylor heard how the retired weaver left a note to her husband, Harry, asking ‘for forgiveness’.

The court heard that Mrs Carr, 80, suffered from memory problems but had otherwise been a ‘fit and well woman’ who, along with her husband, was a keen walk leader.

Explaining that his wife’s memory had worsened in the last year, Mr Carr said: “Her memory was a lot worse than anyone really knew.

“The doctor said she thought she was becoming a burden on me. She wasn’t. I would have put up with her forever.”

Mr Carr said that on the night before his wife’s death, they had stayed up late to watch a film, but that when he woke up the following morning she was gone and had left him a note downstairs.

PC Neil Goodison, from Lancashire’s road policing unit in Colne, said he spotted Mrs Carr at the Reedyford Road bridge during a routine patrol at around 8.10am on November 8.

He said: “She rolled herself over the barrier so she was on the wrong side. I instantly put my flashing lights on and my colleague jumped out and stopped the traffic.

“As soon as I have done that I have looked forward, saw a pair of legs underneath the bridge, and this person - I’m sorry to say it - dropped from the bridge like a rag doll and landed in the motorway.”

A post-mortem examination by Dr Walid Salman, a pathologist, found that Mrs Carr’s medical cause of death was ‘multiple severe injuries’.

Reaching a conclusion that Mrs Carr had taken her own life, Mr Taylor said to Mr Carr: “Your wife must have been under the misapprehension that she was a burden on you.

“She must have been very worried herself, because she recognised that her memory wasn’t what it was and that tended to embarrass her, and it’s in that frame of mind she decided to end her life.

“She wrote the note and it’s quite clear what her intentions were from that note. People did what they could to help her but that was to no avail. She simply took her own life.”