A COMMUNITY nurse who accidentally gave an insulin overdose to a diabetic Gwent pensioner who later died, suffered a setback yesterday in her legal bid to overturn a coroner's verdict she claims overshadows her life and career.

Joanne Evans injected Margaret Thomas with ten times the insulin dose she needed in June 2007, the 85-year-old from Pontypool died six hours later.

Ms Evans is challenging what she claims is an unjust verdict of unlawful killing returned by the coroner for Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan at an inquest in 2009.

A judicial review challenge, on the grounds the coroner took too narrow an interpretation of coroners' rules and was wrong to refer to her by name in the summing up and verdict, will be heard in the High Court soon.

Yesterday her barrister Ian Wise asked Lord Justice Gross in the Civil Appeal Court to widen the judicial review's scope to allow her lawyers to rely on another legal point previously ruled unarguable - that the coroner was legally barred from making a finding of unlawful killing using words which made Ms Evans "readily identifiable" and doing so was a breach of the rules and of her human rights.

But Lord Justice Gross declined the request, saying such an argument, if successful, would have "startling consequences" and could lead to a major shake-up in inquest law.

Mr Wise spoke in court of the "profoundly negative consequences" of the coroner's findings on Ms Evans including an "enduring impact on her psychological well-being."