A young bride-to-be died from burns and inhalation of noxious smoke, when one of several candles she had been burning at her Woodside flat melted through her television as she slept.

Jacqueline Sutherland, a teaching assistant, of Sutherland Court, Birchanger Road, was overcome by smoke when she woke to find her ground floor bedroom on fire on the morning of August 31, last year.

On Tuesday, February 26, an inquest heard how Ms Sutherland, 29, had taken her eight-year-old daughter Naome to stay with her grandparents house in Lancing Road, West Croydon, to give herself space to decorate, before enjoying a birthday drink with a neighbour and returning home to bed.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Croydon coroner, Dr Roy Palmer, read out a statement from leading fireman Lee Conlon.

Mr Conlon who described how when he arrived at the scene at 4am, following two separate 999 calls from neighbours, the front door was blocked with furniture Ms Sutherland had stacked behind the door.

After smashing a patio window Mr Conlon found her body "curled into the foetal position on the floor near the foot of the bed".

Investigating officer, PC Allan Clark, told the inquest how an aluminium tea-light case had been found inside a melted television set, and the remains of a clipper lighter, cigarettes and an ashtray were on the bed.

"It is not clear whether a carelessly discarded cigarette end or the tea light had started the fire," he added.

He confirmed the flat had not been fitted with a smoke alarm.

A pathologist's report stated that Ms Sutherland had been three times over the drink drive limit and had taken a very small amount of the sleeping medicine, diazepam, but that she had died from "burns and inhalation of fire fumes".