Daughter of top literary agent, Gillon Aitken died after taking drugs and alcohol

By
David Gerges

Last updated at 8:03 PM on 9th February 2012

The daughter of a top literary agent died the morning after her mother’s funeral having taken a lethal concoction of drugs and alcohol.

Charlotte Aitken, whose father’s list of authors includes Salman Rushdie, Sebastian Faulks and the Queen’s biographer Sarah Bradford, was found in a critical state by her half brother, who failed to resuscitate her.

The night she died, she had drunk alcohol before taking a host of pills in an attempt to deal with her sleep deprivation.

The English church St Andrew¿s in Tangier, Morocco, where the funereal for Charlotte's mother took place

The English church St Andrew’s in Tangier, Morocco, where the funereal for Charlotte’s mother took place

Her half brother, John Svanberg, had had to break into her mother’s house where he found her lying on the bed and barely breathing.

He told a court inquest: ‘I heard the dog and it was crying at the door and then I knew something was wrong.

‘I went to the garden and climbed up over the wall onto the balcony and she was lying on the bed sweating and her lips were blue and I knew something bad had happened.

‘She was barely breathing. I tried to wake her, but I couldn’t. I phoned Gillon, I knew she wasn’t in a good state.

‘I tried to revive her, but I didn’t know how. So I phoned an ambulance and waited and I held her in my arms as she took her last breath.’

Agent Gillon Aitken, admitted that his daughter had a history of alcohol and drugs problems but was confident that she was overcoming her issues before her death.

Coroner Alison Thompson asked Gillion: ‘If it wasn’t for what happened to her mother she would have come through?’

To which he responded: ‘I have not the slightest doubt that she would have come through.

Aitken had been married to his Swedish-born wife, Cari Margareta Bengtsson, for 18 years before their divorce in 2000.

Ms Bengtsson later moved to Morocco in 2010, with Charlotte spending much of her time between the U.K and North Africa.

Salman Rushdie

Sebastian Faulks

Gillon Aitken’s list of authors includes Salman Rushdie, left, and Sebastian Faulks

Following her mother’s death and despite the several ‘appalling difficulties’ in arranging the funeral, her father Gillon told of how his daughter was dealing with her mother’s passing before her own death.

Aitken said: ‘Charlotte was alternating between stoicism and great grief, it was very stressful.’

‘In a way the stress was indomitable. The tragedy in a way is that Charlotte went to Tangier to renew herself and in that process she had felt freer than she had in London.’

Home Office pathologist Dr Olaf Biedrzycki could not establish the exact cause of death because of the time between her death and the examination when the body was returned to Britain.

But he said alcohol, along with the drugs she took ‘would act to slow the breathing down.

‘It is well known that cocktails (a mixture of alcohol and drugs) alone are not good things to combine. Levels that they are present in do not interest me, it is the combination.’

Dr Biedrzycki refused to rule out death as a result of long term alcohol abuse which was evident from the state of Charlotte’s liver leading the coroner to conclude that the medical cause of death was ‘unascertained.’

Meanwhile, coroner Mrs Thompson, recorded a verdict of death by misadventure, adding; ‘She has died from probable complications of alcohol or drug use.’

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