HER family's love and material assets were no match for the powerful drugs that slowly destroyed heroin addict Sarah Trenchard.

Her body was discovered by police in the derelict Scruffy Ducks pub in William Street, Herne Bay, close to her home in Bank Street.

The death of the 40-year-old is not being treated as suspicious. Her body was found last weekend.

How the life of a beautiful, privileged and talented young woman spiralled into a dark abyss of drug-taking has been described by her family who did their best to support her.

Mrs Trenchard's death follows that last year of her husband, the Rt Hon Henry Trenchard, great-grandson of Sir Hugh Trenchard, founder of the RAF.

Her brother Russell Saunders is anxious that her death is highlighted to deter other young people from ever starting to take drugs that could destroy their lives, and wants international government action to curb the flow of drugs into Britain.

Mr Saunders, who lives near Canterbury, spoke from the Foxhunter Caravan Park, Monkton. The family also owns Court Mount Mobile Home Park, Birchington, and Bluebell Woods at Broad Oak.

He said drugs "decimated Sarah's physical being and the world around her".

Mrs Trenchard was the youngest child of Colin and Monica Saunders and was born and brought up in Ightham, near Sevenoaks. She attended Ightham Primary School and then St Hilary's, a private school near Sevenoaks, which she left with three good A-levels.

Mrs Trenchard went on to Leicester University where she gained a 2:1 degree in English and had aspirations to become a journalist.

Mr Saunders, 44, said Sarah had been "quiet, gentle, very caring, intelligent and literate, she just loved books".

"University was the start of a Sarah's slow and gradual demise. It was her first time living away from home, and she got involved in heroin," he said.

"We didn't know anything about it at all. It was so alien to us as a family and nothing we had ever come across before."

He said she had been drawn further into the depths of drug abuse when she travelled to India in 1985. When she returned, her parents were starting to become gravely concerned.

She had gone to live in London and was in "deep, deep trouble." She went into rehabilitation twice but her condition continued to worsen. She was married in 1997, the year that her daughter was born.

She was unable to look after the little girl who was taken under the wing of her sister.

Mr Saunders stressed: "Sarah was at rock bottom. She stayed for a time in Margate and Ramsgate before coming to Herne Bay 18 months ago. We had bought some properties and put her in one of them.

"She had been mixing with such a crowd in Margate, we thought they might lose her scent.

"But it is such an evil spiral, all those involved, the addicts and dealers are rotten, awful people, they can spot each other a mile away and are drawn to each other like magnets.

"A couple of winters ago I was called to the hospital where she was on a life-support machine, her whole body had shut down, she had septicaemia, hepatitis A and hepatitis But the situation was just ongoing and awful.

"She had been an addict for 20 years. When news of her death came through, there was great sadness, but almost a sense of relief."

Neighbours in Bank Street had voiced their concerns to police about some of the visitors to Mrs Trenchard's home and associated disruption. One woman said she had looked "very bedraggled and vacant looking" when last seen.

An inquest will be held into the death. Scruffy Ducks closed down during last summer.