A WARNING to always use electrical circuit breakers was issued at an inquest today into a young mother who died while mowing her lawn.

Lisa Jeeves, 23, of Watsons Hill, Sittingbourne, was electrocuted as she used a hover mower to prepare for a barbecue on May 17 last year.

Forensic scientist Roger Blackmore said: "If a circuit breaker had been used then the accident would not have occurred and she would have only received a mild electrical shock.

"There was no problem with the mower but the pins on the extension lead had been wrongly connected to the mains. The connecter must have come apart or she took it apart and she then touched the exposed pins."

Distraught neighbour Mandy Newnham said: "I had spent the day with her and we decided to have a barbecue at her house but the grass was too long. The mower looked very old and it had been left outside.

"I was digging and had my back to her when I suddenly heard her screaming. She was holding the extension lead in one hand and the other was up to her body and she was having a fit."

The dead woman's husband, Scott, who has now moved away from Sittingbourne, said: "I was not in at the time and the extension lead had never been moved from the mower which we had been given."

Coroner Roger Sykes said: "She died accidentally from an electrical shock due to the cable being connected the wrong way."

Speaking after the inquest Mrs Jeeves' mother, Pat Smith, of Highsted Road, Sittingbourne, said: "I heard after it happened that shops in Sittingbourne sold out of residual circuit breakers - and I urge everyone using electrical equipment in the garden to get one."

Mrs Smith had just arrived in Turkey for a holiday when she received a phone call about the tragedy so she got a plane home straightaway. She told the Kent Messenger at the time that the grass had been wet and that she had removed her flip-flops. Pathologist Dr David Rouse told the Gillingham inquest that her feet had been grass-stained.

Mrs Jeeves worked at McCabe Ford Williams chartered accountants in Central Avenue, Sittingbourne, and attended the Salvation Army Baby Club in the town with her daughter Tamzin, who was then eight months old.