A WOMAN found hanging in her Burnley home had written a message to her family on the wall, saying she loved them and she was sorry.

An inquest heard that Margaret Devitt, 31, had lost contact with her brother and sisters when she went into care at the age of nine.

But in recent years they had been back in touch and before taking her own life she wrote that those years had been "the happiest of my life".

The inquest heard that Margaret, who had been released from prison in May last year, had also left a note on the doorstep warning the finder not to enter the house because "they would not like what they found" and to ring the police.

She used strips of bed sheets knotted together to hang herself from the loft of her home in Edgworth Grove, Burnley, on August 23, 2003.

Her sister, Pauline Hendry, told the hearing that Margaret suffered from depression and had attempted to take her life before.

She said: "Suicide always seemed to be an option for her. We said between ourselves that it wasn't a case of if, but when, she would do it."

Deputy coroner Mark Williams, said: "I am satisfied that she intended that this act would end her life and was not a cry for help that went wrong. The findings, therefore, are that she took her own life."