‘I don’t want others to die ignoring doctors’

The conclusion of the inquest of Paloma Shemirani ended the latest chapter in a winding cautionary tale on medical misinformation. Her twin brother now tells of his enduring memories of Paloma, the justice he wants for his sister, and the lives he wants to save in her memory.

Gabriel Shemirani smiles wistfully while describing his twin sister as “incredibly funny and smart” – but his posture changes when he describes her death.

“There’s two strands to losing a twin,” he said. “There’s the real sadness that the person has died, but it’s also like losing a hand.”

Mr Shemirani is calling for his mother, a former nurse turned conspiracy theorist, to be “held to account” over Paloma’s death.

“I want to get justice for my sister,” he said. “I don’t want her to be one in a long line of people who die this way.”

Paloma Shemirani, 23, died in July 2024 at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton after suffering a heart attack caused by a tumour found in December the year before.

An inquest which concluded on Thursday found that Paloma, from Uckfield in East Sussex, was “adversely influenced” by her mother, conspiracy theorist Kate Shemirani, who the coroner said “more than minimally” contributed to her death.

Ms Shemirani’s care of her daughter was “incomprehensible but not unlawful killing”, coroner Caroline Woods added.

Sitting at a kitchen table, Gabriel speaks of how he felt his sister was somehow missing from the inquest process, and remembers Paloma as someone with whom he shared a bond of unspoken understanding.

“You see yourself coming as a pair,” he said. “There’s so much stuff that doesn’t need to be said.”

As he speaks, Gabriel refers to his mother by her first name, only occasionally slipping into referring to her as “mum”.

He says the death of his sister was influenced by his mother – an opinion echoed in the conclusion of the inquest.

The inquest into her death was told that Paloma refused chemotherapy to treat her tumour, and that a safeguarding report was requested due to concerns over her decision and the “possible influence” of her mother.

Voice notes heard in the inquest from Ms Shemirani to her daughter’s boyfriend revealed plans to remove Paloma from hospital shortly before Christmas 2023.

Ms Shemirani, who was struck off the nursing register for spreading misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic, has denied influencing her daughter’s decision to refuse chemotherapy, saying: “It doesn’t matter what my view was, it was what Paloma wanted to do.”

She suggested throughout the inquest that medical staff were to blame for her daughter’s death, and the inquest heard she had previously likened chemotherapy to “mustard gas” while talking about her own experience of being diagnosed with breast cancer.

At Kent and Medway Coroner’s Court in Maidstone on Thursday, Ms Woods said: “If approached with an open mind, Paloma would have chosen the chance to survive, and if she had undergone chemotherapy she probably would have survived.”

She also described the behaviour of Ms Sherimani and Paloma’s father Dr Faramarz Shemirani, as “reprehensible”.

Dr Shemirani was described as “sympathetic” to his ex-wife’s views.

In a statement outside the coroner’s court, Gabriel called the inquest findings “a failure of the state”.

Dr Tom Roques, a consultant clinical oncologist, said it was “pretty difficult for the healthcare staff to be faced with someone who absolutely refuses treatment that you are pretty sure will be not just helpful but lifesaving”.

He added: “This is a patient who everyone involved in her care will remember for all of their careers. It’s such a desperately sad story.”

Dr Liz O’Riordan, a breast cancer campaigner and retired breast surgeon, said of the inquest: “I can’t imagine how anyone with the slightest medical background can believe this [treating cancer with alterative treatments rather than chemotherapy] is a sensible thing to do.

“It’s disturbing and terrifying.”

Looking forward, Gabriel hopes that from his sister’s death will come a better understanding of the consequences of medical misinformation, and better legislation to combat it.

He also says he wants his mother to be held to account for what he sees as her part in Paloma’s death.

He said: “I want to get justice for my sister. I don’t want her to be one in a long line of people who die this way.

“I want my mum to be held to account and I want that to make the government and the state realise that we need to stop something like this happening again.”