A "funny, cheeky" young woman who was "the life and soul of the party" tragically died when she accidentally overdosed on morphine after suffering a headache, an inquest heard.

Grace Lewis Shaw was found unresponsive at her mum's home in Liverpool on the morning of November 24 last year. The 22-year-old carer was last seen fast asleep on the sofa by her mum who later went on to alert emergency services when she returned from an appointment and found Grace had not moved.

A post-mortem found her cause of death was morphine toxicity with pneumonia. At her inquest today, it was heard that Grace suffered from insomnia and persistent headaches, and had a cold on the day before she died. It is believed she took the morphine, which had been prescribed to her mum, in an attempt to relieve her pain. "I truly believe that she has woken up with a banging headache, gone into the kitchen and grabbed the tablets to get rid of the headache. It has just been an accident," her dad Michael said, according to the LiverpoolEcho. "That's what I truly believe."

Handing down a conclusion of death by misadventure, coroner Anita Bhardwaj said: "It's unclear as to why Grace has taken the excessive amount of morphine, however taking everything into account, I think it's more likely than not she has taken it for the relief of pain, not appreciating the consequences her actions. Whether she knew she was taking such a high dose, we will never know."

Paying tribute to his daughter, Michael said: "She was the life and soul of the party. She would do anything for anyone. She made plans to go to and clean her mum's house up for Christmas just before, so she was making plans for the future."

He added: "We just want people to know the type of person she was: funny, cheeky, a larger than life character. She lived her life to the full. She was just a normal 22-year-old girl." Her step-mum Olesia said: "She loved spending Sundays with all the family. The roast dinner was always gone in a couple of minutes! Every single person from the family is proud of her. She had a smile that would light up a room."

The family added they wanted to extend their thanks to Break Free, a drug and alcohol support service which helped Grace overcome a cannabis addiction before she died. Michael said: "We want to think Break Free for all the work that they did with her before. They were fantastic. She had her smile back and there was a glint in her eye again. Five months down the line, they are still in contact with us, just checking up and making sure that we're OK."