A young estate agent has died after a five-year battle with ketamine addiction, which left her spending hundreds of pounds monthly on incontinence pads, an inquest has heard. Isabelle Sapherson-Moralee, 22, known as Izzy, passed away after her body shut down due to prolonged use of the class B drug.
Mother's Desperate Pleas
Her devastated mother, Ann Moralee, told the inquest she fought for 18 months to get help for her daughter and warned health officials that she would die without intervention. She claimed her daughter was poorly treated by some staff, who saw her only as an addict, despite her desire to recover and her apparent lack of capacity.
Ms Sapherson-Moralee, who suffered from chronic pain and a damaged bladder due to her addiction, discharged herself from hospital two days before her death and "went home to die." While being cared for by her mother, Ms Moralee begged her to allow an ambulance. She recounted: "I kept asking her, please let me phone an ambulance but she said 'no more hospitals mum, I can't do it anymore.'"
"She knew she was dying that last 48 hours. She died 36 hours after she got home. She was freezing cold, shallow breathing. I checked on her and she was cold."
While performing CPR on the phone to 999, Ms Moralee told the 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." The flight attendant and former nurse added: "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."
Rising Ketamine Abuse in the UK
The case comes as shocking figures reveal a 250% increase in ketamine usage among young people in the UK since 2015, the largest rise for any single drug in that period. Ketamine, also known as 'K' and 'Special K', has been linked to dozens of student deaths in recent years.
Ms Sapherson-Moralee, an estate agent, began taking the drug regularly during the Covid lockdowns in 2020 after moving in with her boyfriend. Her mother, from Wimborne, Dorset, did not discover the addiction until the end of 2023, when it was "out of control and she couldn't hide it anymore."
The drug use damaged her bladder and caused incontinence about a year before her death. Her mother spent £500 monthly on incontinence pads, and her daughter stopped working six months before her death.
Missed Opportunities
Ms Moralee felt health officials missed opportunities to help. After a bad experience with a urologist at Salisbury District Hospital, who she described as "vile" to Izzy, her daughter lost trust in doctors. "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."
She added: "I spent up to £500 a month on incontinence pads, we asked for help from the bladder and bowel people but they discharged her, as did the weight-loss team who said she didn't have an eating disorder. Then she really just gave up."
Ms Moralee tried to get her daughter into rehab using private medical insurance and considered treatment in America. She believed a "last chance" came when her daughter was arrested for suspected ketamine possession. She felt Ms Sapherson-Moralee should have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. "She couldn't walk, she was disorientated - that was the last opportunity to save her. They had a duty of care, they should have applied the Mental Health Act."
"She was deemed to have capacity, my argument is how could she possibly have capacity? I was desperately trying to help my daughter. She was so desperately ill. I think there were safeguarding concerns and missed opportunities to escalate and order an intervention."
"She felt like nobody cared about her anymore, they just saw an addict."
Final Days
Ms Sapherson-Moralee was admitted to hospital in March but still managed to obtain and take ketamine. Her mother said: "In her last hospital stay she was caught on the ward twice with ketamine, I followed her out of the building and tried to get the number plate of whoever was supplying my sick child with ketamine."
She was admitted to A&E on April 24 last year before discharging herself. Ms Moralee recalled: "I kept asking Izzy 'please let me phone the ambulance'. She said 'no more hospitals mum, I just want to be at home with you, I can't do it anymore'. Because of all the capacity stuff, she would have refused to go."
"So I made her hot water bottles, made her some French toast, she didn't eat much." When asked if her daughter wanted to get better, Ms Moralee said: "Yes, 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. Her goal was to get better."
Cause of Death
The cause of death was respiratory depression due to combined severe morphine and gabapentin toxicity. Both pain drugs showed higher than normal therapeutic levels in her blood, and gabapentin exacerbated the toxic effects of morphine. The post-mortem also found biliary sepsis, localised sepsis in the liver, which may have been a contributing factor but did not cause death.
Expert Insight
The inquest heard from Scott Davey from Reach, a drug and alcohol support charity working with Ms Sapherson-Moralee. Coroner Brendan Allen asked if users get trapped in a vicious cycle where ketamine causes damage, leading to increased usage to relieve pain. Mr Davey confirmed: "Yes, ketamine normally starts as recreational. The dissociative factors mean it can be used to mask mental health, external stresses. 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."
Mr Davey noted an increase in ketamine users in the two years he had been with the charity.
Tribute
In a tribute, a friend said: "I am so lucky to have been able to call you my best friend for such a long chapter of my life. I will never forget you, you crazy girl. You brought so much happiness into my life and I can't thank you enough for that. You hold such a special place in my heart and always will. I love you so much forever."
