A RAVE party in a disused Leyton meat factory went tragically wrong for a 32-year-old Big Issue worker when she fell to her death from a staircase, an inquest heard.

Deirdre Dooley was taken to Whipps Cross University Hospital with serious head injuries after the accident on October 31, and was later transferred to the specialist National Hospital in Camden.

Miss Dooley, originally from Boston, underwent two operations to stop bleeding from her brain but never regained consciousness and died on November 8.

Her family who had flown in from the States that day were at her bedside.

St Pancras Coroner's Court heard evidence from Miss Dooley's GP that she was quite a heavy drinker and had admitted to using recreational drugs.

Witnesses told the court Miss Dooley may have taken an unknown amount of ketamines prior to her fall at the industrial park in Lammas Road.

Miss Dooley was in fancy dress and celebrating her new job at the Single Person's Homeless Project, with friends when she fell from a flight of cement stairs.

Witness Alice Hodgson said: "I remember her because she was wearing a pink fairy dress with wellies. I helped her down the stairs because she was very, very pale."

Miss Hodgson said she had become concerned because Miss Dooley seemed disorientated but after checking if Miss Dooley was all right, she moved into another room where a band was playing.

She added: "Some time later I came in and she was lying on the ground she had obviously fallen."

Miss Hodgson's boyfriend, Angus Simpson, said he had passed Miss Dooley on the stairs, which he described as wooden with no bannister or hand rail.

He said: "As she got near to me she seemed to fall and she hit my chest and she seemed to black out before she fell on to the concrete."

Mr Simpson told the inquest that soon after the accident he remembered seeing someone with a hammer fixing the staircase.

Musician David Ashley who organised the party said he had held a birthday party in the factory that summer, when there had definitely been a bannister on the stairs because he had put it up himself with a friend.

A post mortem report gave the cause of death as a cranio cerebral injury.

Dr Freddy Patel added that there was no evidence of any natural disease which could have led to Miss Dooley blacking out.

Coroner Dr Andrew Reid, recording a verdict of accidental death, said: "There is some evidence that she may have used drugs in the past or that evening. It does appear that something may have caused her to collapse."

Miss Dooley moved to the UK in 1999 when she started work for the Big Issue Sales Support team selling magazines to vendors for re-sale on the streets.

In May 2001, she transferred to the Big Issue Foundation, the charity set up to work with homeless people, as a vendor project worker, where she felt she could offer more long-term support to vendors.

Speaking at the time of Miss Dooley's death, her colleagues at The Big Issue all described their "beloved friend" as a little woman with a big heart.