A staff nurse at Bradford Royal Infirmary has admitted she was ‘very wrong’ when she told a distraught father his dying daughter was “only acting”.

Mavia Mahmood collapsed on a children’s ward after not wanting to take her vital medicine, a Bradford inquest heard yesterday.

Despite a crash team battling for more than 40 minutes to save her, she was eventually declared dead at BRI.

The inquest was told how the seriously-ill 12-year-old, who had been born with a major heart defect, had already tried that day to scratch and bite her sister and Staff Nurse Karen Gregory as they tried to persuade her to swallow her medicines.

But it was in the afternoon when Mavia’s father was at her bedside that she got upset about medicines again and the tragedy happened.

Staff Nurse Gregory described to the inquest how Mavia, whose life ultimately could only have been saved by a heart and lung transplant, had shrunk away from her as she approached with two syringes of medicine. She said she gave one of them to her father to hold.

“I realised he (Mavia’s father) was less willing to be as firm as her sister. I felt it was going to be up to me,” she said.

Mavia eventually sat up for Staff Nurse Gregory who said she was able to give her the first syringe of medicine before indicating to the father to give her the second one, it was then that Mavia fell back on to the bed.

“I’m afraid I made the assumption it was part of the behaviour she had been displaying. I sat her in a semi-reclined position and left the bed area.

“Mavia’s dad was shouting as I left, I told him she was only acting and after a few moments she would calm down. I was very wrong,” she said.

The inquest heard a second version of what happened before Mavia’s collapse from her father, of Second Avenue, Killinghall, Bradford.

He swore on the Koran it was Staff Nurse Gregory who had “forced” his daughter to take both syringes of medicine and that she had forcibly held her chin to do it.

He fought back tears as he described how he had pleaded for Staff Nurse Gregory to come back.

Coroner Roger Whittaker said: “I have listened to two different versions of what happened about giving the medicines and it’s a matter of concern but it’s understandable two different versions have sprung up in the heat of the moment. I take the view that this does not matter and it is not a precursor to the death.”

About her collapse, he added: “Nurse Gregory’s view was wrongly, as she regretfully admits, that Mavia was acting – she wasn’t.”

However, he said he was satisfied having heard from the pathologist and Mavia’s consultant, Dr Shaun Gorman, that her heart problems and pulmonary hypertension could have caused a fatal heartbeat at any time.

Mr Whittaker recorded a verdict that Mavia died of natural causes.