The last time Gabriel Shemirani spoke to his mother was on the day he discovered his sister Paloma had died.
“I found out through lawyers that my sister had died, so I phoned to ask whether it was true,” he told The Independent. “She taunted me as if to say ‘you’re crazy, who told you that’.
“By that point, my sister had been dead for a week.”
His father, Dr Faramarz Shemirani, who is “sympathetic” to his ex-wife’s views, would later block his number.
Outside Kent and Medway Coroners’ Court, Gabriel is angry. After a legal battle and a lengthy inquest, he had hoped his mother would face the consequences of her actions, but a coroner has now ruled that his sister Paloma was not unlawfully killed at the hands of their Kate ‘Kay’ Shemirani.
A “bright, intelligent” University of Cambridge graduate, Paloma had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in December 2023, after attending hospital with pains in her chest.
The 23-year-old was advised by doctors at Maidstone Hospital to begin urgent chemotherapy, but her mother, a prominent anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist, would “adversely influence” her daughter to reject her treatment.
Despite her brother Gabriel attempting to persuade her otherwise, Paloma chose to follow her mother’s “alternative treatment” plan, which included daily coffee enemas and green juices.
Paloma collapsed on July 19 last year and was taken to Royal Sussex County Hospital where she died five days later, with Coroner Catherine Wood concluding that their influence on her “more than minimally” contributed to her death.
Prior to her diagnosis, Paloma was working and living in a flat with a housemate after graduating from Cambridge, and was “estranged” from her mother.
The inquest heard that her parents had split in 2014, with Gabriel alleging that he and his siblings “felt unsafe” around their mother and that she had been “emotionally distant” and physically abusive to them as children.
A well-known conspiracy theorist with a large social media following, Ms Shemirani has promoted her anti-medicine, anti abortion, free-speech focused Christian values on her podcast and on stage, and offers advice to others as a “medical” expert.
She was struck off as a nurse in 2021, and a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) committee found she had spread Covid-19 misinformation that “put the public at a significant risk of harm”.
“People used to write off conspiracy theories as something far flung, it’s a Louis Theorux documentary. It’s not your neighbour, your brother, you sister,” Gabriel said.
“I think we’re living in a time where there’s a media of fear, it’s all about clicks and engagement. We have a media that drives people towards the extremes, and naturally you get people being vulnerable to these ideas.
“With more and more people coming to believe these conspiracy theories or fall prey to them, it worries me. It’s not a cycle, it’s not the economy doing badly, it’s something that’s getting worse and worse.
“For example, even with Charlie Kirk getting shot, you never used to have been able to see a video of him dying but within five minutes it was all over Twitter. We’re living in this wild west of social media where you can say and do anything on it.”
Throughout the inquest process, both Gabriel and his brother Sebastian have been very vocal in blaming their mother for asserting control over their sister and causing her death.
It was noted in Paloma’s initial hospital admittance in autumn 2023 that she had “recently moved out of her mother’s house due to emotional and physical abuse including food restrictions” by doctors at Maidstone Hospital.
Texts and voice notes from her parents during her stay at Maidstone Hospital in December 2023 showed them insistently advising her to “discharge herself” after she had received her cancer diagnosis.
Ms Shemirani also sent Paloma’s then boyfriend a voice note telling him to bring her to their family home and saying “she’s really not going to be going in or out of anywhere”, while she looked after her.
She was my sister and I’d have failed her as a brother if I hadn’t have done everything I could to save her when she was alive and get justice for her when she died
Gabriel Shemirani
A few days later, she informed the hospital that she would not be proceeding with chemotherapy.
Coroner Catherine Wood concluded: “It seems that if Paloma had been supported and encouraged to accept her diagnosis and considered chemotherapy with an open mind she probably would have followed that course.”
After being blocked while trying to persuade Paloma to begin treatment, Gabriel brought a High Court case in April 2024 to assess his sister’s ability to exercise her capacity to make medical decisions.
While Paloma gave a witness statement saying she was making her own choices, she had said in a text that she was being “kept out” of the proceedings, with the coroner expressed “real doubt” that she was the sole author.
Of the impact both legal proceedings and the inquest has had on him, Gabriel said: “It’s aged me a lot, I was 22 when this started.
“I’ve lost friends, I’ve lost girlfriends, I put everything on hold, I put my university on hold, my relationships on hold. She was my sister and I’d have failed her as a brother if I hadn’t have done everything I could to save her when she was alive and get justice for her when she died.”
She collapsed at her home after telling her mother she was struggling to breathe, and died five days later of an “unsurvivable brain injury”.
Reflecting on his sister, Gabriel said: “We were incredibly close. It’s like having another hand, they’re part of your psyche. They’ve always been there. We used to tease each other, we’re incredibly similar, we’re serious and goofy in similar ways, incredibly uncool in similar ways.”
Both he and Sebastian had been hoping for the coroner to rule her death as an act of “unlawful killing”, but have been left disappointed despite Ms Wood recognising there had been a breach in the duty of care.
The coroner also found it “incredible” that Ms Shemirani was claiming her daughter was “well” in July, and that it was “egregious and incomprehensible” that she did not seek further medical advice as Paloma’s condition worsened.
“I know there was a lot of speculation today around how today would turn out and while the general public was hopeful that we would get the justice so deserved for my sister, it pains me to say this was a failure by the state that I was unfortunately expecting,” Gabriel said.
“This isn’t just about my sister, it’s not even about Kay. It’s about your sisters, your mothers, your brothers, your fathers. Today, the state didn’t just care to protect my sister, it doesn’t care to protect yours either.”
