A teenage girl who died after injecting herself with insulin may have taken it to try to lose weight.

Charlie Dunne, 19, used an insulin pen belonging to her diabetic boyfriend while he was out at a hospital appointment.

An inquest heard the trainee hairdresser may have taken the hormone previously after hearing that it could help slimmers.

Miss Dunne with boyfriend Terence Rhoden. He found the teenager unconscious on the living room floor of their home after he returned from hospital and realised she had taken his insulin

But the teenager, who was fit and healthy, would have been unaware of the ‘catastrophic’ danger the drug posed to non-diabetics, a coroner said.

Miss Dunne was discovered collapsed at the home in Atherton, Greater Manchester, she shared with boyfriend Terence Rhoden, 28, when he returned hours later.

Loss: Charlie Dunne, 19, injected herself with an insulin pen belonging to diabetic boyfriend Terence Rhoden. She died in hospital a few days later

She suffered brain damage caused by a dramatic drop in blood sugar and died in hospital six days later.

Police later investigated claims by Miss Dunne’s family that Mr Rhoden had confessed to injecting her with insulin in the past to help her lose weight.

But he denied doing so and officers found no evidence that he was involved in his girlfriend’s death.

Bolton Coroner’s Court was told that ‘bubbly’ Miss Dunne was a regular at her local Methodist church, where she was given the community title of ‘rose queen’ for her charity fundraising.

However, the inquest was told she suffered mood swings and had tried to overdose on tablets during a previous relationship.

She also claimed to have suffered a miscarriage and was worried she could not have children, despite a lack of medical evidence to support her fears.

The court heard that Mr Rhoden was woken when Miss Dunne returned from her local pub in an ‘agitated’ state on December 17 last year and threatened to take painkillers.

She told him to leave, saying he was ‘too good for her’. After talking, she calmed down and fell asleep on the sofa.

Mr Rhoden left for his appointment at around 7am the next day, but arrived home to find his insulin pen on the couch ‘down the cushion, kind of sticking out’.

‘It was a brand new one,’ he said. ‘The box was in the bin. When I found the insulin pen it was empty.’

The court heard that the 100ml pens used by Mr Rhoden, who has suffered with diabetes for seven years and needs insulin injections four times a day, contain between 60 and 100 doses.

Miss Dunne was taken to the Royal Bolton Hospital, where doctors discovered her blood glucose levels had plummeted. She died on December 23.

Her uncle, Andrew Dunne, claimed Mr Rhoden told him his niece had taken insulin before.

The builder said the pair had ‘heard somewhere, like the pub, that insulin could help you lose a bit of weight’.

The hearing was told Mr Rhoden (left) talked about insulin injections with Miss Dunne’s uncle Andrew Dunne (right) as she was being kept on a ventilator in hospital the day after her admission

Det Insp Paul Rollinson of Greater Manchester Police confirmed Mr Rhoden’s account was correct and an examination of Miss Dunne’s phones showed nothing to suggest the relationship was volatile

Philip Dunne (centre), the victim's father said: 'Charlie would never take her own life and would never take drugs as far as I’m aware and was very anti-drugs'

He added: ‘He did say that two weeks prior he had given her an injection to see if it worked.’

Mr Rhoden said his girlfriend knew how to inject the drug, but denied helping her inject herself or seeing her take the hormone.

Her parents, Michelle and Philip Dunne, told the hearing their daughter would not have committed suicide and was ‘anti-drugs’.

‘[She] would never do anything like suicide because it was selfish and all it does is upset the family left behind,’ said Mrs Dunne.