A mother-of-three died when she leaned out of a window to smoke a cigarette and got her head stuck in the railings.

Kimmy Varma, 64, was unable to free herself and died from asphyxiation.

She had pulled on the curtains so heavily in a bid to pull herself up that some of the screws had come loose from the rail, an inquest heard.

Mrs Varma is thought to have died about two hours before the alarm was raised by a passing jogger who saw her head sticking through the ornamental railings.

Her estranged husband Anil Varma, 63, said he believed she had leaned through the railings to have a cigarette because she was fastidious about keeping her flat, in Cheltenham, Glos, clean and smoke free.

"She had been drinking and she could not handle alcohol very well," he said. "It was such an unusual thing to happen and a real tragedy for the family."

Her family said she had often leaned through the railings to smoke.