An inquest at Windsor’s Guildhall last week heard how a normal Sunday morning turned to tragedy on July 6 last year when Stephen Janisch returned home and found his wife, known as Jane, lying face down at the bottom of the pool.

The sequence of events leading to the death of 64-year-old Penelope Jane Janisch may never be known for certain, but it is thought she was electrocuted by touching a metal access plate at the poolside which became live due to a wiring fault.

Two ambulances attended the scene at Winkfield Street, Winkfield, but were unable to revive her – she was declared dead at 11.40am after being air-lifted to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Mr Janisch, who had been rowing that morning, told the coroner he had felt a tingling sensation in his legs when he entered the pool to help his wife – his heart-rate monitor, used while exercising, as well as the ambulance defibrillator, also experienced interference until the mains electricity was switched off.

Consultant forensic engineer Professor Jan Stuart inspected the house on July 14 and 15 and suggested a fault in the wires running from the main house to the outside pool area caused the electrical issues and tingling sensation described by Mr Janisch. He said the tingling was caused by an electrical current in the water, something Jane herself would have experienced.

Professor Stuart said: “I can only assume that Jane got into the pool and also felt the tingling sensation and rushed to get out, in doing so she must have touched the live metal plate and was electrocuted. As she was still in the water this would have been fatal.” A post-mortem examination found no evidence to suggest she had drowned, nor was there any sign of heart or other disease. The doctor noted that classic signs of electrocution are often not evident when the person is in water and said the death seemed consistent with that of electrocution.

While recording his verdict coroner Peter Bedford said the story had 'touched’ him.

He said: “We come across all kinds of tragic events. All of us can relate to this – I go running myself in the mornings – when I read my wife the report she said it could almost have been written by me.

“It comes very close to home. It touched me as I read it and the engineer has clearly gone to a lot of effort to try and find out what happened here.” A verdict of accidental death was recorded on Thursday, January 15.