A “perfect mother and wife” died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) despite not eating red meat for years, an inquest has been told.Grandmother Joyce Parlour, 74, of Chelmsford, lost the feeling in her arm at the start of the year and by March she had died.

A “perfect mother and wife” died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) despite not eating red meat for years, an inquest has been told.

Grandmother Joyce Parlour, 74, of Chelmsford, lost the feeling in her arm at the start of the year and by March she had died.

Her grieving husband of 56 years, John Parlour, said the cause of her death was a “mystery” and more research needed to be carried out into the devastating brain disease.

Following her inquest at County Hall in Chelmsford yesterday the 79-year-old widower said: “She was the perfect mother and wife, this thing came right out of the blue, it's a mystery how she caught it.

“I inquired with our own doctor about whether she had had a blood transfusion in the past 30 years and she hadn't.

“If she caught it through eating meat she's not going to be the only person that has eaten that piece of meat, there will be other people. I think the risks were played down for too many years, it needs to be investigated thoroughly.”

The disease, which causes small spongy pockets in the brain, is said to be growing more common in Britain due to more accurate diagnosis and the emergence of a new form - variant CJD, which is linked to BSE or mad cow disease in cattle.

At her inquest yesterday assistant deputy coroner, Chinyere Inyama (CORR), recorded a verdict of natural causes.