Coroner orders mental health reports over death of mother who fell from building while in bitter legal fight with her antique dealer fiance about ownership of £2.7m London property
Rachel O'Hare, founder of a charity which helps women in domestic violence refuges, was found next to a city centre apartment block last month.
The 49-year-old divorcee was suing her ex–lover, celebrity antiques dealer Owen Pacey, 60, for ownership of a five–storey Georgian mansion, in the trendy area of Spitalfields, East London, before she died.
Ms O'Hare, whose charity Elle for Elle aimed to support women in need by offering them basic toiletries and beauty products, was pronounced dead outside Victoria House, Ancoats, on the edge of Manchester city centre, on June 30.
The mother-of-three was described by friends as a 'kind, energetic woman who put others before herself'.
Area coroner for Manchester Mr Paul Appleton – opening the inquest this morning – asked for details of any mental health treatment Ms O'Hare may have received.
Mr Appleton said: 'I am conducting the opening of the inquest of the sudden and sad death of Rachel O'Hare.
'I have been provided with a witness statement by police coroner's officer Elizabeth Davies.
'Officer Davies described the circumstances of that to be as follows. On June 30, 2025, Rachel was found deceased outside Victoria House on Great Ancoats Street, Manchester.
'Police attended the scene and sadly pronounced her life to be extinct based upon Rachel having injuries which were deemed to be incompatible with life.'
The inquest – held at Manchester Coroner's Court – heard how Ms O'Hare, an interior designer, was formally identified by her passport, and the clothing and jewellery she was wearing, as described by her daughter.
A preliminary cause of death provided by Dr Martin Swali was multiple traumatic injuries.
Mr Appleton added: 'A witness statement is to be provided by Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust as to any relevant contact, care or treatment provided to Rachel.'
A witness statement is to be provided by Rachel's general practitioner and or the surgery.
The coroner went on: 'The full file from Greater Manchester Police is to be provided once complete and the results of post-mortem toxicology analysis are to be provided in due course.'
A date for the hearing is expected to be confirmed later in the year.
According to court documents seen by the Mail, she claims she paid for the London property and it was rightfully hers.
Ms O'Hare alleged that Mr Pacey, a former squatter and self–made antique fireplace expert who counts Mick Jagger, Naomi Campbell, Kate Winslet and Orlando Bloom among his clients, had locked her out of the luxury home.
She says he stopped her from collecting her belongings, refused to pay any bills and threatened to 'trash' the interior, which is packed with beautiful artwork, ornate Italian chandeliers and expensive designer furniture.
The couple, who split acrimoniously in May last year, were due to go head to head over the property at a High Court trial in the next few months.
But just four days after the most recent hearing in the case, at Leeds Combined Court, on June 26, Ms O'Hare was found dead.
The five–storey Georgian mansion in west London that was the centre of Ms O'Hare and Mr Pacey's court battle
In a statement to the court in Leeds, Ms O'Hare claimed Mr Pacey persuaded her to buy the elegant 18th Century house, in Wilkes Street, east London, in their joint names, in June 2021.
She took out a loan and also used the proceeds of her divorce settlement from ex–husband, Steve O'Hare, 50, a Cheshire–based millionaire investment manager, with whom she had three teenage children, to pay for it.
At that time, she and Mr Pacey had been together for less than a year following a whirlwind romance after meeting at his high–end fireplace showroom, Renaissance, which is based in a former Victorian pub, in Shoreditch, east London.
Legal papers seen by MailOnline show that when the former couple bought the house together in 2021, they both signed an agreement specifying that if one of them were to die, ownership of the house would pass to the surviving partner
The documents, drawn up by the solicitors who had handled the purchase of the historic Spitalfields house, had offered Mr Pacey and Ms O'Hare two options: they could either each own a specified proportion of the whole property or they could jointly own the whole with full ownership reverting to the surviving partner if the other predeceased them.
Because they chose the latter option, the documents signed on 1st August 2021 mean Owen Pacey became the sole owner of the £2.7 million 18th Century property in London following Rachel O'Hare's sudden death.
In a newspaper interview while they were still a couple, Mr Pacey claimed it was love at first sight when they first met.
'She bought a table,' he said. 'That was it, as soon as I saw her.'
Ms O'Hare said Mr Pacey, who was brought up in a council flat in gritty Bethnal Green and left school at 14 with no qualifications, promised to pay her his share of the four–bedroomed property within two years, once he had sold the £1.2million maisonette above the shop that he owned.
'The first defendant (Mr Pacey) said he had no money to contribute when the property was purchased but would be able to pay the claimant for his share in due course,' legal documents said.
To give her peace of mind, Ms O'Hare said Mr Pacey also agreed to put half of his fireplace business, worth around £5million, in her name until he secured the monies.
She also claimed they agreed to share the cost of renovating the house – they spent £14,000 on radiator valves alone – and, if he didn't pay his share or they split, it would revert back to her ownership.
Mr Pacey gave her paperwork to sign, which persuaded her he was arranging the legal formalities, and also sent her reassuring texts, saying: 'You are on the title deed either of the flat or shop,' she said.
Shortly before Christmas, in 2022, the couple got engaged and Mr Pacey did 'gift' Ms O'Hare a 50 per cent share in the three–bedroomed maisonette.
He moved into the newly renovated Wilkes Street property and told a journalist: 'I used to dream about living in Spitalfields. To actually live there now – I've never been so happy.'
But Ms O'Hare remained in Mere, Cheshire, with her three school–age children and 10 months later, in October 2023, the couple's 'turbulent' relationship started hitting the rocks.
Ms O'Hare discovered Mr Pacey had never formalised her 50 per cent stake in his business and they began arguing regularly over money.
She claimed she had ended up paying the lion's share of the house refurbishment when he failed to pay builders' fees.
She also alleged Mr Pacey was 'controlling' and instructed lawyers to begin legal action against him.
'The relationship between the claimant (Ms O'Hare) and the first defendant (Mr Pacey) was turbulent,' Ms O'Hare's claim said. 'Incidents led to temporary separations and there was a final and unequivocal parting in May 2024.
'The claimant contends that the cause of the breakdowns was the first defendant's controlling and abusive behaviour, which led to the involvement of the police.'
Mr Pacey was alleged to have promised to put half of his business in Ms O'Hare's name – only to never have done so
In a defence statement also submitted to the court, Mr Pacey denied persuading Ms O'Hare, a respected fundraiser who set up a domestic abuse charity providing toiletries for women living in refuges, to buy the house in their joint names.
He said she did so because they were 'in love' and there was no discussion or agreement about him eventually paying for half of the house or transferring over 50 per cent of his business.
'The parties (Ms O'Hare and Mr Pacey) were going to get married and there was just no discussion about who owned what,' his defence document said.
Mr Pacey, who once described being made homeless and forced to live in a squat in King's Cross after having his first flat repossessed in the 1980s as the 'most traumatic thing I've ever been through,' also denied being controlling.
He said they had only argued seriously twice – both times when Ms O'Hare had been drunk, in Rye, Kent, in the summer of 2023 and the night before they were departing to New York in May 2024.
He also denied not allowing Ms O'Hare access to the property, now estimated to be worth in excess of £3.2m, or not paying bills or threatening to trash it.
He claimed he paid £70,000 towards the house renovation and provided most of the furniture from his shop.
He had also installed six Italian marble fireplaces, worth £350,000, and claimed Ms O'Hare had organised glossy magazine features to show off and promote the 2,700sq ft house, which they planned to rent out for use in £1,000–a–day photo shoots.
According to his statement, dated February this year, he wanted to get the maisonette and the Georgian home valued, so that he could buy her out of both properties.
When approached by the Mail, Mr Pacey refused to discuss his legal dispute with his former fiancee except to say: 'I worshipped the ground Rachel walked on.'
He added that Ms O'Hare had been suffering from poor mental health in the weeks leading up to her death and had recently been treated in hospital.
Mr Pacey said: 'I'm suffering with my own mental health. I don't want to be here without her.'
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2 minutes ago
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The Independent
32 minutes ago
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On ways to curb the tensions, he said 'no-one' thinks that housing asylum seekers in hotels is a good idea, and highlighted the role of technology and social media, when planning and organising of the far-right is happening across online platforms. In the longer term he said the only thing that is going to work is a 'genuine social cohesion strategy'. 'You're much less likely to believe far-right misinformation about people that live in your town if you know them, if you've spent time with them.'
