A woman who enjoyed a lavish girls’ weekend party in Dubai to celebrate her 40th birthday collapsed and died as she was travelling home.
Vanessa Brown suffered a suspected heart-attack as she was leaving the desert state where she had gone for a four-day break with girlfriends.
Ms Brown, from Wolverhampton, was awarded an OBE, for her work campaigning for victims of the Windrush scandal.
The mother-of-two’s grown up daughters had been apparently unaware of any existing health issues so her sudden death on Sunday, 10th, March, came as an enormous shock to her family.
And their heart-ache was compounded as the father of her youngest daughter, Erol, had passed away just a week before.
Vanessa Brown (pictured) suffered a suspected heart-attack as she was leaving the desert state
Ms Brown was on a lavish girls’ weekend party in Dubai to celebrate her 40th birthday
Her grief-stricken sister Maria Brown told : ‘We are all utterly heart-broken. Within a week my niece Vaneigha has lost both her parents and her baby boy has lost his grandparents.’
Ms Brown, a civil servant, was usually the ‘life and soul’ of the party. But she began feeling unwell shortly after arriving in the Gulf city-state on Wednesday.
Maria explained: ‘Vanessa had long planned to go to Dubai for her 40th birthday. She was really looking forward to it.
‘She is usually the life and soul of the party.
‘But when she got there she was not feeling well. She went to the hospital to checked over. But between the hospital and the hotel she passed out.
‘We still don’t know what happened, but from what we understand she suffered a cardiac arrest.’
Vanessa’s loved-ones have been inundated with messages of support as family and friends honour the popular and much-loved woman from Wolverhampton.
In 2020 she was awarded the OBE for her volunteer work on the Windrush Reform Programme helping British subjects – many from the Caribbean descent – who were detained, denied legal rights or threatened with deportation.
Vanessa worked for the Home Office, suppling information for more than 2,000 people affected by the scandal. She also volunteered at the London Olympics in 2012.
The mother-of-two’s grown up daughters had been apparently unaware of any existing health issues
A committed Christian, Vanessa worshipped at a number of churches in Wolverhampton and was a member of a gospel choir.
Her sister Maria asked well-wishers to pray for her sister, in a Facebook post.
She wrote: ‘What am I going to do?
‘The one that taught me everything I know, we had each other’s back regardless.
‘I’m asking you all to pray, pray for our family.
‘I’m alive but I’m not living.. That’s the only way to explain it.’
Maria Brown are working with the Foreign Office to repatriate Vanessa’s remains to the UK.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: ‘We are providing support to the family of a British woman who died in Dubai.’
A memorial service to honour Vanessa’s memory will held upon her return.