A former teacher may have been swept into a fast-flowing river while trying to secure plant pots and a canoe in dreadful weather conditions, an inquest heard.

Valerie Weston, of Chapel Terrace, Irwell Vale, disappeared on March 30 after enjoying an evening with friends.

Burnley Coroners Court heard how the mum-of-two was due to go on a campervan holiday to Shell Island in North Wales the next day, however the alarm was raised after her son Joseph could not find her and alerted the police.

Mrs Weston, who previously worked as a teacher and teaching adviser and had just been given the all-clear from cancer, was found on April 1, ten miles downstream in Bury following a large underwater search.

Coroner Richard Taylor ruled she died of an accidental death in a “dreadful accident”.

Addressing her family, he told the inquest: “She was going away the following day and may have wanted to secure everything and make sure it was all right before going to bed that night. The canoe had been moved, plant pots she wanted to secure them, and it was at some stage she was somehow deposited into the river, either a slip, either the wind, either the elements in one form or another.

“But once she was in the river there was no chance of her getting out.”

Her sister Janet Berkon told the inquest: “She had lots and lots of friends. In fact 400 people turned up at the funeral which we were absolutely amazed at.

“She had a lot of dealings with very troubled 14 to 16-year-olds and turned a lot of people’s lives around who had serious issues with drugs and bad backgrounds.

“She loved her job, worked very hard at it.

“She loved weather and water and rivers and spent a lot of time at the seaside and camping rough right on the edge of cliffs.”

In a statement, her son Joseph Weston said she was ‘always very lively and happy’ and could be ‘stubborn’ and ‘not allow her body to dictate what she wanted to do’.

He said he ‘panicked and knew something was wrong’ when the next morning he found all the lights on in the house, her bed had not been slept in and the doors unlocked.