A DEVOTED mother killed herself and her son by leaping 180 feet with him wrapped in her arms, only months after speaking to The Northern Echo about her struggle to cope with his disability.

The bodies of 38-year-old Helen Rogan and autistic 11-year-old Mark Owen Young were found by a relative beneath a County Durham viaduct.

Police said Miss Rogan left a series of heart-rending notes in the family home in Blackhill, near Consett, before her death.

Yesterday, her sister, Bernadette Herdman, 37, said: "Her life completely focused on making him happy.

"We knew she was desperate at times but she seemed to be coping. There was no hint of this. She could not bear to be without him."

The alarm was raised by a taxi driver, who failed to get raise any response from the family home after calling to take Mark to his special needs school.

Mrs Herdman's husband, Jimmy, began a search and found the bodies under the Hownsgill Viaduct, known as Gill Bridge, in the Moorside area of Consett, at 10am on Monday.

A Durham County Council spokesman said social services were expecting an inquiry into the level of care mother and son were receiving from the authority.

"At the moment we are fully confident that Mark was receiving an appropriate level of care. All our work was focused on supporting the mother to continue to help her support her son," he said.

Miss Rogan, a qualified occupational therapist who quit her job to care for Mark after her husband left about seven years ago, had said she was having difficulty coping.

Speaking to The Northern Echo last year, she described Mark as impulsive, unpredictable and very challenging.

She said: "He has trouble communicating and has problems with other people and with imagination and play. He needs security and stability."

Family friends Susan Laing and Richard Murray acted as a respite and took Mark to Whitley Bay every week.

Ms Laing, from Consett, said: "One consolation is that they died together. She couldn't have lived without him and him without her. I hope they are at peace."