​At a “pre-inquiry review hearing” on the death of Natasha “Tash” Ashby, senior county coroner James Bennett said a message from an unnamed “Male A” had been recovered from Tash’s phone after she was found dead in a tent at the county bus station in August 2023. “The message threatening Natasha Ashby said ‘you may as well kill yourself by an overdose’,” Mr Bennett said. RELATED NEWS : “The police need to make an independent decision on where to take action, but there will be a need for an account from Male A within three weeks,” he added. Solicitor for Tash’s family Ciara Bartlam said the hitherto overlooked phone evidence “has revealed yet another deficiency” in the police investigation of her death, which has not led to criminal charges despite indications that Tash, who had grown up in care and had learning difficulties, did not administer the lethal dose herself. Stay updated with all the latest Herefordshire news that matters to you! Read the local news and stay informed with our advert-free app, read the paper before anyone else via: The Digital Edition, gain unlimited access to Hereford Times website, and much more. West Mercia Police’s solicitor Mark Thomas, also present in the meeting, did not respond to this. Mr Bennett said police officers would now attempt to find known associates of Tash’s in the city and put a set list of questions to them while being recorded on body-worn cameras, in order to provide “consistency” – though he added this list “needs to be as small as possible”. “We just need to know how Natasha was injected, did they do it, and will they cooperate in giving evidence to the inquiry,” he said, adding that for any of those involved to say they had, would amount to “an admission of manslaughter”. OTHER NEWS : Ms Bartlam said there were “three or four” people in the tent with Natasha on the night in question of August 3-4, and that those found should be “invited down to the station”. Mr Bennett replied that police would “attempt to track down and speak to anyone who was there” but that “to arrest them and put them in a room ignores the reality of the situation”. A final pre-inquiry review hearing is due on February 23, ahead of the full inquest in Gardner Hall on the campus of Hereford’s Royal National College for the Blind on March 16.