The twin brother of a woman who died after being “influenced” into not having chemotherapy by their mother, has called inquest findings “a failure of the state”.
Paloma Shemirani collapsed on 19 July last year and died in hospital five days later.
She had earlier declined treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and instead followed an “alternative” treatment plan, including daily coffee enemas advised by her conspiracy theorist parents.
Her brothers were hoping coroner Catherine Wood would find Paloma’s death an “unlawful killing” after concluding that she “could and should” have survived with conventional treatment.
However, despite ruling her mother had “adversely influenced” Paloma, 23, through “incomprehensible” actions – and that both she and her husband had “more than minimally” contributed to her death – the inquest did not rule it was “unlawful”.
Her mother, Kay “Kate” Shemirani, a prominent online conspiracy theorist, and her father, Dr Faramarz Shemirani, who is “sympathetic” to his ex-wife’s views, had tried to blame medical staff for their daughter’s death.
Outside Kent and Medway Coroner’s Court, Gabriel Shemirani said: “It pains me to say that this is a failure by the state I have unfortunately been expecting.
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“My sister wasn’t just failed by Kay Shemirani, she was failed by a state that showed no care for the people it promises to protect – by social services who played a blind eye to the abuse it should have exposed, by a police force that acted indifferent to a crime it should have investigated and by a coroner that cowered away from a murder it was meant to uncover.”
An osteopath who saw Paloma on the morning she collapsed said he had “never seen” a lymphoid mass like hers in 43 years of practice.
The inquest was told Ms Shemirani had questioned medical staff to the extent that the coroner found it “highly likely that she seeded some form of doubt in Paloma’s mind as to her diagnosis”.
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Ms Shemirani was struck off as a nurse in 2021, and a Nursing and Midwifery Council committee found she had spread COVID-19 misinformation that “put the public at a significant risk of harm”.
After graduating from the University of Cambridge, Paloma was working and living in a flat with a housemate and was “estranged” from her mother until her cancer diagnosis.
Ms Shemirani encouraged her to come back to the family home and took a leading role in Paloma’s alternative “treatment programme”, the inquest heard.
At the time of her diagnosis, doctors at Maidstone Hospital told Paloma she had an 80% chance of recovery through chemotherapy.
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The coroner said: “It seems that if Paloma had been supported and encouraged to accept her diagnosis and considered chemotherapy with an open mind she probably would have followed that course.”
She later added: “If approached with an open mind, Paloma would have chosen the chance to survive, and if she had undergone chemotherapy she probably would have survived.”
The coroner found it “incredible” Ms Shemirani was claiming her daughter was “well” in July, and it was “egregious and incomprehensible” that she did not seek further medical advice as Paloma’s condition worsened.
Abusive
“The influence that was brought to bear on Paloma did contribute more than minimally to her death,” said Ms Wood.
Gabriel Shemirani told the inquest, “I blame my mother entirely for my sister’s death”, by “obstructing” his sister from receiving treatment.
Mr Shemirani alleged he and his siblings “felt unsafe” around their mother and that she had been “emotionally distant” and physically abusive to them as children.
He further alleged during his evidence that his father was also physically abusive to him and his brother.
It was noted in Paloma’s initial hospital admittance in autumn 2023 that she had “recently moved out of her mother’s house due to emotional and physical abuse including food restrictions” by doctors at Maidstone Hospital.
Texts and voice notes from her parents during her stay in December 2023 showed them advising her insistently to “discharge herself”.
Family dysfunction
In April 2024, Gabriel Shemirani brought a High Court case to assess his sister’s ability to exercise her capacity to make medical decisions.
The case made slow progress, and while Paloma gave a witness statement saying she was making her own choices, she had said in a text that she was being “kept out” of the proceedings, the court heard.
The coroner noted the “striking” family dysfunction which had been “on display very publicly” during the inquest.
“The dynamics within the immediate family were complicated and dysfunctional at the time of Paloma’s death,” she said.
Ms Wood added that their behaviour in court had been “reprehensible” as they sought to blame medical professionals for their daughter’s death.
Paloma’s brothers were not told about their sister’s collapse until after her death.
