A polo journalist and former regional daily columnist who drowned at a favourite childhood haunt took her own life, a coroner has ruled.

An inquest heard former Bristol Evening Post writer Victoria Elsbury-Legg, pictured left, had been planning her death for weeks before asking her parents to drive her to Mudeford Quay, near Bournemouth, in February.

On arrival at the quay’s car park she disappeared from the vehicle, where a suicide note was later found, without her parents’ knowledge.

The Bournemouth Echo reported how it sparked a large-scale search and rescue mission by police, RNLI and Coastguard before she was pulled from the water unresponsive later the same evening.

Victoria, 44, who most recently worked as a freelance polo journalist, had suffered from ME and lived nearby with her parents during the last few months of her life.

Speaking at the inquest in Bournemouth, her mother Sarah Legg said: “It became clear afterwards that she had planned every detail of her death in the weeks beforehand.

“She had very fond memories of Mudeford as we used to go there for holidays when the children were young. She picked that place for a reason.

“In the weeks before her death we had heard Victoria moving about at night and she had also asked us if she could have a light on at night. We didn’t realise until afterwards that she had planning for her death and making sure everything was in order for when she was gone.”

A Bristol native, she used to write a “racy” column for the her hometown newspaper the Post called ‘Sex in the City’.

The inquest heard how Victoria had been plagued by tragedy from a young age.

When she was just 13 her best friend from school had been found dead in bed, an incident which “really affected Victoria”.

Mrs Legg told the inquest that later in life when her daughter was working at the Guards Polo Club there were six very tragic deaths around the same time – including the CEO who died in a helicopter crash in Northern Ireland.

Her younger sister Genevra was diagnosed with ME when she was just 14-years-old, and Mrs Legg added: “Victoria was always the dependable one and she was always the one people would turn to. She always wanted to be the fit and strong one but she was struggling herself.”

Dorset Coroner Sheriff Payne recorded a verdict of suicide.

Victoria graduated from Royal Holloway, University of London, with a degree in English literature and drama, before embarking on a career in journalism.

She worked on the then-HTV programme The List, interviewing future stars such as the Spice Girls and Justin Timberlake, before becoming a polo journalist.

Of her ‘Sex in the City’ column in her hometown newspaper, described as “racy”, her parents previously said: “Our builder at the time used to read it avidly, but we used to close our eyes when we read it.”