Schoolgirl Elaine Swift overdosed on painkillers and died after she was bullied for saving her sister's life, an inquest heard yesterday.

The 15-year-old was hailed a hero in newspapers and on TV when she gave bone marrow to her sister Christine, who suffered from leukaemia.

But, from that moment on, the teenager was taunted at school. Her distraught father, Ben told a coroner yesterday: "Bullying killed my daughter".

The hearing, in Hartlepool, Teesside, was told how Elaine, of Lancaster Road, Hartlepool, died in the intensive care unit at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital last November.

She had taken 15 paracetamol tablets almost two weeks earlier, which caused her liver to fail.

She underwent a liver transplant operation, which was a success, but within 24 hours her condition worsened. Elaine died on November 27 last year.

A post-mortem examination showed that the cause of death was multiple organ failure brought on by the overdose.

The hearing was told that 15 tablets would not, in normal circumstances, be likely to kill someone. But it was believed Elaine's liver may have been susceptible to failure.

The schoolgirl was just 11 when she was found to be a 400-1 bone marrow match for her seriously-ill sister, Christine, then aged five, in August 1997. The subsequent operation was successful and Christine has made a full recovery.

But Elaine's life was soon made a misery by classroom taunts.

She eventually moved from Brierton High School, Hartlepool, in an effort to beat the bullying. But a transfer to nearby Dyke House Comprehensive apparently made no difference and the abuse continued.

Her father Ben, 45, a retired storeman and school governor, told the inquest: "My conclusion is that bullying killed my daughter. The bullying went right through the secondary schools at Brierton and Dyke House, but I was told by the schools they would deal with it because they had a bullying policy.

"A bullying policy is a piece of paper that schools and education authorities can hide under."

Mr Swift and his wife Fiona, 38, a home care assistant, said their daughter would often hide her true feelings and not give full details of the bullying she was suffering.

But at times she had told how she had been punched, spat at, had her clothes torn, and chairs pulled from underneath her.

She was also stabbed with pencils.

The youngster had a near-perfect school attendance record and never once complained that she was too afraid to attend classes in fear of the bullies.

The inquest, which in due to last for two weeks, continues.