A successful lawyer drowned herself after struggling to balance the demands of motherhood and her job, an inquest heard today.
Catherine Bailey, 41, a mother of three children and a partner in leading law firm, SJ Berwin, disappeared from her central London offices on Friday, 9 January.
Her body was found in the river Thames near Richmond Bridge, south-west London, the next day.
Half an hour before her body was found, she had sent a text message to her husband, Neil Ashman, reading "Richmond. I am so sorry. BK all my love to you and the girls. Hold them close."
The coroner Alison Thompson told West London coroners' court: "It is probable she may have been suffering from a degree of post-natal depression."
She added: "Ms Bailey was a very capable and professional woman and a loving mother of three young children who found it hard to meet the demands of motherhood and the high standard she had set herself."
Detective Sergeant Bernard McCabe told the court that Ashman raised the alarm at about 6pm on Friday.
Bank records show Bailey had booked a room at the Thistle Hotel in the Barbican, central London, that day but staff could not recall whether they had seen her.
Using mobile phone records, the police were able to track her movements on Saturday morning to London's Blackfriars railway station and discovered she had then travelled west.
Her husband, believing she may have been heading towards Kew Gardens, in west London, alerted friends who joined police officers in a search but she was not seen again until her body was found in the river at about 5.50pm.
The court heard that Bailey, who was born in Johannesburg, but lived in Islington, north London, had very small traces of alcohol, paracetamol and caffeine in her blood.
The court heard she had no history of psychiatric illness and had returned to work shortly before Christmas after giving birth to her third daughter.
Thompson described her death as "an absolutely tragic situation".
She told the court that Bailey had drowned in the river and recorded a verdict of suicide.