Open verdict on chess star who fell to her death

An open verdict was recorded yesterday at the inquest into the death of a chess prodigy who fell from her hotel room weeks before her father was due to face trial for raping her.

Jessica Gilbert, 19, tumbled from the eighth floor of the Hotel Labe in Pardubice in the west of the Czech Republic at around 3.15am on 26 July last year.

Her father, Ian, a director at the Royal Bank of Scotland, was due to face trial on five counts of raping his daughter. Mr Gilbert, 48, was accused of assaulting Miss Gilbert at the family home in Woldingham, Surrey – where she lived with her parents and sister – over a period of five years.

After Miss Gilbert's death however, the case was postponed until November, when Mr Gilbert was cleared. Yesterday, the Surrey Coroner, Michael Burgess, said: "I am aware she was about to give evidence in her father's trial. I have no doubt this was a prospect she found daunting, possibly even terrifying." But the coroner ruled out suicide. "If she jumped deliberately, she didn't make her intentions sufficiently clear," he said.

Miss Gilbert had been drinking beer and vodka from the mini-bar on the evening of her death and was two-and-a-half times the legal drink-drive alcohol limit, the court heard. A friend who was sharing the hotel room got up from bed to go to the bathroom, to find Jessica missing and the window open.

Jessica's mother, Dr Angela Gilbert, said her daughter was not a heavy drinker but had become unhappy before her death and was "terrified" of her father, from whom Dr Gilbert split in 2003. Two days after her death, it emerged that Mr Gilbert stood accused of the assaults on her. Since then it has been reported that his daughter had a record of self-harm, had taken anti-depressants, and attempted suicide.

Outside court, Dr Gilbert paid an emotional tribute to her daughter. " Jessie has been robbed of a happy and fulfilling future. The world has been deprived of a special young woman with so much to give," she said.

Miss Gilbert had represented England at international chess from the age of 12, and in 1999 won the Women's World Amateur Chess Championship. She was praised in the House of Commons by the late Tony Banks, then the Labour Sports Minister, who said the country was "extremely proud" of what she had achieved. After her death, the chess world reacted with shock and the English Chess Federation said of Miss Gilbert: "Her friendly personality endeared her to all ages in the chess community and she will be much missed."

The website Chessbase outlined Miss Gilbert's success: "At eleven she became possibly the youngest person to win a senior world championship in any competitive arena ...she acquired the Women's World Chess Federation Master title and an automatic rating of 2050, both age records for a British female chess player.

"To recognise her achievement the Brain Trust charity, in concert with the Swedish health care and education giant Bure, awarded Jessie a £4,000 chess scholarship to America, where she studied with Edmar Mednis, the New York grandmaster, for a week."

The rising star had won a place to study medicine at Oxford in September 2005, but chose instead to focus a gap year on playing chess. Describing her passion for her beloved game on a chess website, she said: "I started playing chess at the age of 8 and quickly became hooked on the game. Since then I have always played as much as I can alongside school studies. I have played in a wide variety of events including having been given many opportunities to represent the country abroad."