The British nurse’s death was to make headlines in the UK and lead to a 30-year campaign by her father Ron Smith which changed the law around inquests.
A Channel 4 documentary Death in the Desert: The Nurse Helen Mystery, which airs on June 23 at 9pm, will attempt to address this.
Ms Smith was a 23-year-old nurse from the north-west Leeds suburb of Guiseley in Leeds, who left West Yorkshire in 1978 and moved to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia for a lucrative new career in healthcare.
Ms Smith had three younger siblings, Graham, David and Beverley.
Ms Smith appeared to be content with the financial rewards of her new life in the Middle East, according to her letters home to her family.
Ms Smith’s brother Graham Smith during filming for the Channel 4 documentary (Photo: Channel 4)
How did Helen Smith die?
Ms Smith had been at an illicit party in the apartment of surgeon Richard Arnot and his wife Penny.
There had been alcohol at the party, which was not permitted in a dry country.During the course of the evening, Ms Smith and Mr Otten are reported to have gone out to the balcony on the sixth floor of the apartment block.
Some time later the bodies of Ms Smith and Mr Otten were discovered 70ft below the apartment balcony.
A post-mortem revealed Ms Smith had internal injuries to her brain and liver and bruising to the left side of her head and the inside of her thighs.
Graham Smith, Ron Smith and Ruth Bundey at Ms Smith’s Inquest in 1982 at Leeds Town Hall, Leeds (Photo: Channel 4/Alamy/PA)
Four days after Ms Smith’s death on May 20 1979, her father, Ron Smith, travelled to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
He refused to accept the findings of the Saudi investigation and began a campaign to have an inquest into her death in the UK.
Six post mortems were carried out and forensic examinations in a bid to find out what happened on the night Ms Smith died.
Her body was also found under an architectural overhang, which appeared to be inconsistent with a straight fall.
How did Ron Smith’s campaign change UK law?
Mr Smith appealed this decision with lawyer Ruth Bundey, and eventually the Court of Appeal ordered in July 1982 that an inquest should go ahead.
Lawyer Ruth Bundey was interviewed for the documentary (Photo: Channel 4)
Ms Bundey said: “Ron left an incredibly powerful legacy.
At Ms Smith’s inquest, the coroner directed the jury to return a verdict of accidental death, but instead, they delivered an open verdict.
However, Ms Smith was finally cremated in November 2009, and her ashes were scattered at Ilkley Moor at the insistence of Ms Smith’s mother, Jeryl.
Now Channel 4’s documentary takes another look at the life and death of Ms Smith, with previously unseen communications from diplomats and public officials brought to light.
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