The mother of the Deputy Commons Speaker's daughter has hit out at 'gaslighting' after her daughter killed herself while involved in a 'toxic relationship'.

Miriam Lewis found Natalie Lewis-Hoyle hanged at their home in Heybridge, Essex, shortly before Christmas last year.

Now she has decided to launch a website to raise awareness about gaslighting, a type of abuse that involves manipulating someone into believing they are insane, reports Essex Live.

The term originated from the 1938 play and 1944 film Gas Light which features a husband who systematically torments his wife.

In the film, the husband convinces his wife that her belief that the gaslights are dimming and brightening for no reason is all in her head, leading to her being convinced she is going insane.

During the inquest Mrs Lewis had said that her daughter was in 'psychological torment' from her relationship.

She told Essex Live: 'This relationship went on for two and a half years and it affected the whole family.

'She was a really feisty character and you wouldn't think it would get to her but quite often the people that are controlled in relationships are women and are in fact, intelligent women, because they overthink and try to rationalise it.

'The people that are in these relationships often don't realise it is happening and it is made up of actions that seem insignificant at the time.

'The problem now with social media is that you can't escape it. Even just having a dig or changing your status to single on Facebook can seem insignificant but it is just another way to make you feel off-balanced.'

The night before she died Miss Lewis-Hoyle spent the evening on the phone.

Mrs Lewis said: 'We were just shocked when it happened because she was full of life

'You could actually physically see a change in her, sometimes she would be so happy and then something would happen and she would leave the table and go outside and you would see her face drop. It was awful to watch.

'She was troubled. Everything else was on the up but for the relationship.'

At the inquest, senior coroner Caroline Beasley-Murray recorded an open conclusion after ruling out both accident and suicide.

Mrs Lewis said: 'It has given me comfort that somebody as balanced as a coroner had exactly the same difficulty categorising it as a suicide, it just didn't make sense.

'But it did help me. It's never going to bring her back but it was comforting knowing it wasn't just me because I started to doubt myself.

'We knew that suicide was not in her mind, something happened that had altered her frame of mind. I think she would have got so frustrated and when you are in that moment, you want it to stop.