Prince William and Harry's cousin's cause of death is revealed
The Durham University student was found dead at home in Wiltshire by her family at the age of just 20.
The cause of death was recorded as a traumatic head injury and a firearm was found near to her body, the coroner has told MailOnline.
Rosie was discovered by close family members, believed to be her mother Pippa and sister Agatha at her family home in Norton.
'There are no suspicious circumstances or third-party involvement', the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner's service said.
Emergency crews were pictured responding to a serious incident at the family home at around 1pm on Monday, July 14. An ambulance, three ambulance officers, two firearms officers and numerous local response officers were in attendance.
Rosie had been at home packing for a trip away with friends when she died, an inquest heard.
Her family have paid tribute to her, saying she was a 'darling daughter' to her parents Pippa and Hugh and an 'incredible sister' to Archie and Agatha.
A spokesman for the family said the 20-year-old 'will be sorely missed'.
A spokesman for Prince William declined to comment. A spokesman for Prince Harry also declined to comment.
Rosie was the granddaughter of Princess Diana 's uncle, the 5th Baron Fermoy, Edmund Roche, who killed himself in 1984 after suffering from a long bout of depression.
He was found dead aged just 45, from a gunshot at his home, Eddington House. His sister Frances was the mother of Princess Diana.
Last February, Thomas Kingston, the husband of royal Lady Gabriella Windsor, died with a gun found near his body at his parents' home in the Cotswolds.
He died at his parents' home after suffering a 'catastrophic head injury.
An inquest into Rosie Roche's death at Wiltshire and Swindon coroner's court was opened on Sunday and adjourned until October 25.
Coroner Grant Davies said police 'have deemed the death as non-suspicious and there was no third-party involvement'.
A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said on July 14: 'This relates to the sudden death of a woman in her 20s.
'There are no suspicious circumstances and our thoughts are with her family.
'We would ask that their privacy is respected at this terrible time.'
Ms Roche had been studying for a degree in English Literature at Durham University.
An obituary published by the Yorkshire Post said: 'Roche, Rosie Jeanne Burke. Died on Monday 14th July 2025.
'Darling daughter of Hugh and Pippa, incredible sister to Archie and Agatha, Granddaughter to Derek and Rae Long.
'Private family funeral. A memorial service will be held at a later date.'
The death notice of Ms Roche also appeared in The Times newspaper.
Durham University has paid tribute today.
University College principal Professor Wendy Powers said Rosie had made a strong impression on both staff and students during her short time at Durham.
'University College staff and students are extremely saddened by the tragic death of Rosie Roche,' she said.
'Rosie was a first year student studying for an English Literature degree. Rosie had settled into the University and College beautifully and had lots of friends.
'She was loved for her creativity, energy, her love of books, poetry and travel among many other talents. She will be sorely missed.
'Our thoughts and condolences are with Rosie's family and friends, and we are offering support to those affected at this extremely difficult time.'
The student was a scion of the Barons Fermoy and the eldest child of (Edmund) Hugh Burke Roche, 53, and his wife the former Phillipa Kate Victoria Long.
Her grandfather was the 5th Baron Fermoy, Princess Diana's uncle, who shot himself dead in 1984.
Last February, Thomas Kingston, royal Lady Gabriella Windsor's husband, died from a head injury, with a gun found near his body at his parents' home in the Cotswolds.
An inquest in January heard that he had been given several drugs to treat depression by a GP at the Royal Mews Surgery, a practice at Buckingham Palace, after having trouble sleeping following stress at work.
In the days leading up to his death, the former hostage negotiator turned financier had stopped taking any medication and toxicology tests showed caffeine and small amounts of sleeping tablet zopiclone in his system.
The coroner found that he took his own life while 'suffering adverse effects of medication he had recently been prescribed'.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
8 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Policing must be seen to be even-handed
The first of Robert Peel's nine principles of policing, set out as long ago as 1829, is 'to prevent crime and disorder as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment'. The then Home Secretary was responding to the great fear of the authorities in the aftermath of the French Revolution: the mob. Once disorder gets a hold, dealing with it becomes increasingly difficult, requiring recourse to the Army, as happened in Northern Ireland in 1969. The simmering resentment felt in parts of the country about the way illegal migrants have been imposed on communities with no consultation whatsoever is not yet at that level. But as Nigel Farage said this week, we may be on the edge of serious civil disobedience, yet no longer possess the means to contain it. We depend on the police to keep matters under control, though in truth much of the fault lies with the Government. Labour promised that hotels would no longer be employed to house illegal immigrants and yet they are now being used more than ever. In Epping, a hotel has become a target for local protests by people no longer prepared to accept scores of young men being foisted on them. The residents are exercising their rights to object to a set of circumstances over which they have no control and about which they were never consulted. When they hear themselves described as racist thugs they are entitled to feel aggrieved. Essex Police, which has been criticised for the way it has handled days of protests, claims to have been even-handed. But by escorting pro-migrant demonstrators to the hotel, essentially to confront local people, the force's impartiality is open to question. Moreover, it has unwittingly encouraged extremists from the Left and Right to descend on Epping to cause the very trouble the police are meant to prevent. The force must be seen to act in an even-handed way while ensuring the two sides do not end up fighting one another in the streets. No one pretends this is easy but it will require the sort of adept policing that has not been the forte of Essex constabulary, to put it charitably. In the end, the fault lies with the abject failure of the Home Office to find realistic alternatives to hotels for migrants who have crossed the Channel. It is time the ex-military camps, that were once going to be used to incarcerate and process the arrivals, were reopened.
The Guardian
8 minutes ago
- The Guardian
City trader case always had a whiff of scapegoating
Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, the two City traders whose convictions for manipulating a key benchmark interest rate were quashed on Wednesday by the supreme court, were made 'scapegoats for the sins that led to the financial crisis', says Sir David Davis, the campaigning MP. It is impossible to disagree. And Davis is right that this 'major scandal' ought to prompt questions about how the traders' cases were prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office and why it took so long for their convictions to be overturned. There has been a weirdness about these cases from day one. Hayes, a former UBS and Citigroup trader, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud, the sort of sentence you might get for armed robbery. Hayes's alleged crime was the rather more technical one of encouraging his employer to make a dishonest submission in answer to this question: 'At what rate could the bank borrow funds by asking for and accepting inter-bank offers in a reasonable market size just prior to 11am?' Welcome to the world of Libor, or London inter-bank offered rate. The benchmark is now discontinued but it was used to reflect the rates at which banks could borrow from each other. A panel of 16 banks made submissions and an average was taken to set the benchmark daily. It exploded into public prominence during the financial crisis because the health of banks – as judged by their willingness to lend to each other – became a matter of huge public concern. As banks coughed up huge sums in settlements with regulators for Libor-rigging, as it became known, there was political appetite for prosecutions of individuals. Manipulating Libor came to be seen as the epitome of banks' and bankers' deviousness, even though, in truth, the benchmark had little to do with the source of the financial crisis – and even though individual traders tended to protest that their behaviour was well known to their bosses. But it must have seemed an easy thing to prosecute, not least because Hayes himself had admitted to the SFO over 80 hours of interviews that he had tried to influence Libor submitters to put forward numbers that would advantage his trading positions. The problem was the direction given to the jury in his trial. This is the critical passage in the supreme court ruling: 'It was wrong for the judge to direct the jury that, if the submitter took any account of the commercial interests of the bank or a trader, the rate submitted was for that reason not a genuine or honest answer to the question posed by the [Libor] definitions as a matter of law.' Palombo's trial was compromised similarly. The supreme court still said there was 'ample evidence' that could have led the jury to a guilty verdict for Hayes. But – critically – the judge's errors in direction 'were sufficiently material to make the conviction unsafe'. The troubling aspect is that Hayes's lawyers have been making the central point about misdirection for years. The court of appeal, however, dismissed appeals twice. The case made it to the supreme court only after US courts in 2022 decided two other Libor cases differently, saying there was 'no prohibition' on taking commercial considerations into account when making submissions. Charges against Hayes were dropped in the US. As Davis said at the time, the UK became 'an outlier'. Seven other Libor convictions in the UK now look likely to be challenged. If they, too, are overthrown little will be left of the SFO's post-financial crisis pursuit of traders. Davis referred to what he called a 'scapegoating exercise' that happened as a result of alleged collusion between the banks and government agencies, including the SFO and the Financial Conduct Authority. There has always been a whiff here of the authorities going after relatively lowly, if well-remunerated, traders such as Hayes and Palombo to satisfy a political wish for scalps. Hayes's legal team called for a public inquiry and for the SFO, which has powers to act as both investigator and prosecutor, to be abolished. One suspects neither will happen, although the former would add greatly to public understanding of what happened during the financial crisis. But one hopes that this prod will be acted upon because it came from the supreme court itself: 'The history of these two cases raises concerns about the effectiveness of the criminal appeal system in England and Wales in confronting legal error.' You bet it does.
Daily Mail
8 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Moment millionaire mining tycoon 'gets in solicitor's face and pushes him against a window' after he refused to be a witness in court battle
The moment a millionaire mining tycoon seemingly got in a solicitor's face and pushed him against a window after he refused to be a witness in court was caught on CCTV. David Lewis confronted Robert Davies MBE outside the lawyer's office in Newport. Mr Lewis, whose company operated Merthyr Tydfil's controversial Ffos-y-Fran mine, was cautioned for assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH) and was later prosecuted. However, the case has since been dropped, prompting Mr Davies to release CCTV of the ordeal. The dramatic footage, seen first by WalesOnline, appears to show 75-year-old Mr Davies exiting the office to his firm, RDP Law, while Mr Lewis is outside in his car. Lewis is outside in his car. The mining tycoon, 68, then exits the vehicle and approaches Mr Davies before appearing to get right in his face. Mr Lewis then seems to follow him to the side of the building, with the lawyer appeared to be pinned up against a window. Mr Lewis then seems to follow him to the side of the building in Newport Mr Lewis is the director of Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd, which ran Ffos y Fran - the UK's last opencast coal mine - from 2007 until two years ago when it shut down. The company is currently embroiled in controversy over the land's restoration. Mr Davies has claimed the background to the confrontation regards a civil court case. He told WalesOnline: 'In April 2024, proceedings between companies controlled by Mr Lewis, and a third party, were heard by the High Court in London. Both parties had wanted me as a witness; I declined, but appeared when summoned by the court to do so.' After Mr Davies provided evidence in the High Court, he claims he received a visit from Mr Lewis on May 16 last year while heading out the office. In a statement to police, he said: 'I noticed there was a black convertible car parked in the bay immediately to the right of the front door of the office as one walks out. 'As I was leaving the front entrance, I turned left towards my car and heard someone call: 'Come here you f***ing little s***.' After a police investigation was carried out, a PC emailed Mr Davies: 'Mr Lewis will receive a conditional caution for [assault occasioning actual bodily harm] with the condition to attend a victim awareness course.' After being cautioned, Mr Lewis allegedly failed to comply with the condition, which led to a prosecution being brought for ABH. However, when Mr Lewis appeared at Newport Magistrates' Court this month, the case was reportedly dropped, leaving Mr Davies furious. Prosecutor Adam Warner later wrote to Mr Davies saying: 'I am writing to let you know that I have reviewed the charge of assault occasioning you actual bodily harm on May 16, 2024, and made the decision to stop the prosecution. The reason for my decision is that a six-month time limit to commence a prosecution for the appropriate offence has passed.' MailOnline has contacted Mr Davies for comment, and attempted to contact Mr Lewis for comment.
