Rosemary Pagett endured a 30-minute assault by 13-year-old Luke Sharp at her bungalow in Mulberry Place, Ryhill, Wakefield, 10 days before she died.

Coroner David Hinchliff yesterday said he believed there may have been a link between her death and the ordeal she suffered. At Sharp's trial in December the judge said there was no way the offence could be linked to her death.

The former mill worker had a catalogue of health problems. She was subsequently taken to hospital where it was discovered that she had an ulcer, which burst. After surgery, she suffered a heart attack and died on July 13, last year, at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield.

Speaking after the Wakefield inquest, Mrs Pagett's daughter, Amanda Hall, said: "This is the best result we have had throughout the whole process – someone finally saying there was a link.

"That young man frightened my mother to death."

Recording a narrative verdict, Mr Hinchcliff said: "Although the causes of death are entirely natural, I can't rule out there could have been a link between the experiences that your mother had and then in such a short space of time after the fact that the latent ulcer burst and hence this dramatic decline in her health."

Sharp, 12 at the time of the offence, was sentenced to four years in a young offenders' institution at Leeds Crown Court after he admitted sexually assaulting Mrs Pagett at her home.

But in April the Court of Appeal in London ruled he had been punished too harshly and he is now serving a three-year supervision order.

Mrs Hall said: "He did a man's crime, he should be doing a man's time."
The inquest heard Sharp had been approaching elderly Ryhill residents for weeks, pretending to carry out a survey about underwear.

Pathologist Alfredo Walker said no definitive causative link between the sex attack and Mrs Pagett's death could be established.

stuart.robinson@ypn.co.uk