Twin of woman who died after mother 'influenced her' against chemotherapy, says 'the state failed her'

The twin brother of a woman who died after being "influenced" into not having chemotherapy by their mother, has called inquest findings "a failure of the state".

Paloma Shemirani collapsed on 19 July last year and died in hospital five days later. She had earlier declined treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and instead followed an "alternative" treatment plan, including daily coffee enemas advised by her conspiracy theorist parents.

Her brothers were hoping coroner Catherine Wood would find Paloma's death an "unlawful killing" after concluding that she "could and should" have survived with conventional treatment. However, despite ruling her mother had "adversely influenced" Paloma, 23, through "incomprehensible" actions - and that both she and her husband had "more than minimally" contributed to her death - the inquest did not rule it was "unlawful".

Her mother, Kay "Kate" Shemirani, a prominent online conspiracy theorist, and her father, Dr Faramarz Shemirani, who is "sympathetic" to his ex-wife's views, had tried to blame medical staff for their daughter's death. Outside Kent and Medway Coroner's Court, Gabriel Shemirani said: "It pains me to say that this is a failure by the state I have unfortunately been expecting.

"My sister wasn't just failed by Kay Shemirani, she was failed by a state that showed no care for the people it promises to protect - by social services who played a blind eye to the abuse it should have exposed, by a police force that acted indifferent to a crime it should have investigated and by a coroner that cowered away from a murder it was meant to uncover." An osteopath who saw Paloma on the morning she collapsed said he had "never seen" a lymphoid mass like hers in 43 years of practice. The inquest was told Ms Shemirani had questioned medical staff to the extent that the coroner found it "highly likely that she seeded some form of doubt in Paloma's mind as to her diagnosis".

Read more from Sky News:Synagogue attack declared terrorismNicola Sturgeon's letter 'signed in blood' Ms Shemirani was struck off as a nurse in 2021, and a Nursing and Midwifery Council committee found she had spread COVID-19 misinformation that "put the public at a significant risk of harm". After graduating from the University of Cambridge, Paloma was working and living in a flat with a housemate and was "estranged" from her mother until her cancer diagnosis.

Ms Shemirani encouraged her to come back to the family home and took a leading role in Paloma's alternative "treatment programme.