‘Beautiful’ woman, 21, killed in world famous hotel after being ‘crushed by wardrobe when it fell on her’

30 September 2022, 15:44

A "beautiful" woman, 21, died in Liverpool's historic Adelphi Hotel after being crushed by a wardrobe when she woke in the middle of the night and mistook it for the toilet door, her heartbroken mother has said.

Chloe Haynes, 21, was found dead at the top city centre hotel at 6.37am on September 10 after emergency services rushed to the scene following a 'concern for safety'.

Her mother Nicola Williams, 49, claimed that the wardrobe fell from the wall and crushed her windpipe after she got out of bed "confused" following a late night out.

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Miss Williams, from Wrexham, said: "Chloe left Pwllheli around 7.40pm and they went to the Adelphi, there was some sort of engagement party or something.

"By midnight, she had been drinking shots and so on and she was a bit drunk, so her friend has taken her back to the hotel to sleep it off, and then he's gone back out.

"It seems she has got up out of the bed confused, not knowing where she is, and she's opened the door of the wardrobe maybe thinking it is the toilet or the door to go back out of the room.

"It was a big, old, heavy wardrobe and it's fallen on her and crushed her windpipe."

Miss Williams said Chloe, who worked as a waitress in a holiday park, had a friend who shouted to get help and two men from other rooms came to help lift the wardrobe off Chloe, but it was too late to save her life.

Speaking about her daughter, Miss Williams said: "She loved animals, she had a little dog called Archie she was obsessed with. There are so many photos of them together.

"My little nickname for her was birdy. She was so petite and little, and when she ate she was like a little bird. She was quiet, she was somebody who didn't speak unless it needed saying.

"But in the last 12 months she was coming out of her shell, she was gaining her confidence and she had a wide circle of friends. She was kind and caring and she seemed to connect with gay men, and that was how she met the friend she went to Liverpool with."

She added: "She was planning to do her driving lessons and she had saved up a little bit of money for that, and she wanted to go abroad on holiday with her friends. She was just doing all the things that any 21-year-old would do.

"She was beautiful, but she had struggled with confidence about herself so she didn't really know how beautiful she was and that made her beautiful on the inside as well. She was very kind.

The mother says she is determined to find out how the incident happened and wants to 'know every detail'. adding, "I don't know how long she was under there before she died, and we have been told somebody heard a noise from the room around 3am but didn't report it.

"I just cannot believe my daughter is never coming home because of a wardrobe, for the sake of maybe two screws in a wall. Every year I take a picture of all my children on the couch in their Christmas outfits, and now there will be someone missing."

A spokesman for Liverpool Council said: "We can confirm that we are carrying out a health and safety investigation into a death at the Adelphi Hotel on 10 September."

The Adelphi has yet to comment.

Three men had initially been arrested in connection with her death but were later released without charge. The men, aged 26, 46 and 49, were arrested when Merseyside Police launched an investigation into the woman's death but they later deemed that Miss Haynes had died 'accidentally'.

A file has been passed to the coroner and a pre-inquest review will take place on a date yet to be confirmed.