A former policewoman who died after being trapped in a hotel airing cupboard might have lived had she managed to bang on the door for just a little longer, it has emerged.

A couple next door said they would have raised the alarm had the noise from Elizabeth Isherwood’s apartment carried on past 5pm.

The couple thought the banging was maintenance men carrying out repairs at the Plas Talgarth holiday complex near Machynlleth in Wales and decided they would not report it unless it went on much longer.

But Mrs Isherwood - overcome by exhaustion - gave up her attempts to raise the alarm at around 5.05pm, eventually dying alone of hypothermia.

Mrs Isherwood became trapped inside the cupboard on the first night of her one-week stay at the Plas Talgarth.

The 60-year-old’s body was not discovered until a week later, when staff at the complex investigated water leaking from the property in September last year.