Who was Helen Smith? British nurse’s mysterious Saudi death, and father’s fight for justice ...Middle East

Helen Smith moved from Yorkshire to Saudi Arabia in search of a new life but it was cut tragically short just a year later.

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.

But it never fully answered the question of what happened to the 23-year-old from Leeds who had headed to the Middle East for adventure and died in unexplained circumstances.

A Channel 4 documentary Death in the Desert: The Nurse Helen Mystery, which airs on June 23 at 9pm, will attempt to address this.

We take a look at what is known about the life of Ms Smith and the quest to find answers about her death.

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.

She was the eldest of four children for Ron and Jeryl, who had separated a year earlier.

Ms Smith had three younger siblings, Graham, David and Beverley.

After attending private school, Ms Smith had trained as a nurse. Her brother Graham had gone into graphic design and David had joined the merchant navy.The youngest Beverley had gone with her mother after the parents separated.

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.

But in May 1979, her parents were given the devastating news by police that she had died.

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.

Also at the party were Dutch tugboat captain Johannes Otten, New Zealand diver Tim Hayter, French marine biologist marine biologist named Jacques Texier, four German salvage operators and a number of other unnamed guests.

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.

Dr Arnot was understood to have gone to bed as he was due to work the next day, Mr Texier had fallen asleep on a sofa, and Ms Arnot had Mr Hayer had moved to the dining room, where they had sex.

Some time later the bodies of Ms Smith and Mr Otten were discovered 70ft below the apartment balcony.

Ms Smith was found lying in the road and Mr Otten was discovered impaled on spiked railings surrounding the apartment block. Both were fully clothed but with underwear partly removed.

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.

A Saudi investigation concluded the couple had fallen from the balcony while drunk, possibly after or during a sexual encounter.

Four days after Ms Smith’s death on May 20 1979, her father, Ron Smith, travelled to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

Mr Smith, who ran an electrical firm, was a former police officer.

He refused to accept the findings of the Saudi investigation and began a campaign to have an inquest into her death in the UK.

Ms Smith’s body was brought back to the UK and kept in at the morgue at Leeds General Infirmary for more than 30 years, thought to be a record for storage before burial.

Six post mortems were carried out and forensic examinations in a bid to find out what happened on the night Ms Smith died.

Results of some of the postmortems appeared to suggest Ms Smith’s injuries were not consistent with a fall and she may have been the victim of a sexual assault.

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?

The West Yorkshire Coroner at the time of Ms Smith’s death declined to hold an inquest, concluding the case was outside their jurisdiction.

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.

It created a legal precedent and a duty on coroners to investigate deaths abroad where the body was returned to England and Wales.

Ms Bundey said: “Ron left an incredibly powerful legacy.

“His work changed the legal principle so that ever since Helen, families in England and Wales have had recourse to proper investigations when their loved ones die overseas.”

At Ms Smith’s inquest, the coroner directed the jury to return a verdict of accidental death, but instead, they delivered an open verdict.

This failed to provide the closure Mr Smith had been hoping for, and he continued to campaign for the full circumstances of her death to be revealed.

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.

Less than two years later, Mr Smith died in April 2011.

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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