A television producer on ITV’s The Jeremy Kyle Show hanged herself after she struggled to find work when the programme was axed, an inquest has heard.
Natasha Reddican, 31, a producer on the show for six years, drank a ‘significant’ amount of alcohol after a scheduled job interview online did not take place and then killed herself.
She was found by her boyfriend when he returned from work to their home in Salford, Greater Manchester, on February 27 and was later pronounced dead by paramedics.
Ms Reddican lost her job along with others on the show in the wake of the suspected suicide of guest Steve Dymond who died following a drug overdose after appearing on the show in May 2019.
Natasha Reddican, 31, a producer on the show for six years, drank a ‘significant’ amount of alcohol after a scheduled job interview online did not take place and then killed herself
Her mother, Laraine Law, told an inquest in Bolton that her daughter’s job was ‘everything to her’.
She said: ‘For that to be taken from her in such a sudden and unexpected way, she became down and depressed. I think it really knocked her.’
She said Ms Reddican, known to family and friends as Tash, had an ‘amazing, bubbly personality’ but she added: ‘Sometimes when she was a bit down or a bit low she would drink… and then you see that vulnerable side.’
Ms Reddican (third left with Jeremy Kyle and other colleagues) lost her job along with others on the show in the wake of the suspected suicide of guest Steve Dymond who died following a drug overdose after appearing on the show in May 2019
Boyfriend Mackenzie Hanafan, who worked with her on the daytime show, said: ‘Tash worked so hard to get the job and did it very well and had the respect of all of her colleagues.’
He said the circumstances of the programme being taken off air was ‘something that weighed on her mind a lot’.
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He said: ‘The way everything played out, it was not a short period, it was dragged out over the year. It did weigh on her a lot.’
Annaliese Edwards, a co-worker of Mr Hanafan at the time of Ms Reddican’s death, stated her ex-husband had also worked on The Jeremy Kyle Show and said that although support was offered by ITV in the redundancy process it was ‘not enough for some people’ and said: ‘I think some people struggled with the shame of what happened.’
She was found by her boyfriend when he returned from work to their home in Salford, Greater Manchester, on February 27 and was later pronounced dead by paramedics.
Concluding Ms Reddican’s death was suicide, Senior Coroner for Manchester West, Timothy Brennand, said it was a ‘tragic and harrowing case’ involving a young woman with ‘such impressive potential’.
He said: ‘She was a local girl made good with a high work ethic who worked her way up from a modest post to become a producer on a well-known television production.’
He said the reasons for the interview not taking place as planned remained unclear but it was through no fault of Ms Reddican.
Concluding Ms Reddican’s death was suicide, Senior Coroner for Manchester West, Timothy Brennand, said it was a ‘tragic and harrowing case’ involving a young woman with ‘such impressive potential’
Mr Brennand said the motivations for her actions appeared ‘multi-faceted’ but he noted that it had been described to him that her job on The Jeremy Kyle Show was seen as ‘being a family at work such was the close-knit community of those involved’ and after losing her job she ‘seems to have been regarded as something of a pariah in the industry’.
Given the degree of care and thought involved in her death he said he was entirely satisfied her actions were deliberate and intentional despite her drinking a quarter bottle of whisky and possibly half a bottle of wine.
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