The identity of a young woman's body found on a cliff side has been confirmed.

Miriam Cross, a 23-year-old who had gone missing from Worcestershire, was discovered at Cheddar Gorge and an inquest has been opened to solve how she came to be there.

The cause of death is falling from a height, multiple fractures and haemorrhage.

It is thought a climber stumbled across the grim find at noon on Wednesday of last week.

The road through the beauty spot was closed for several hours while emergency services began the long and complicated task of retrieving the body 20m above the road at Horseshoe Bend, below one of the gorge's highest points.

It had become entangled in avalanche netting used to keep rocks from falling and initial reports thought it was a male climber who had become trapped.

Two days later Somerset West Coroner Michael Rose said that experts at Weston General Hospital were carrying out dental record checks to formally identify the woman, but he said that they were 95 per cent certain that the body was that of Miss Cross.

An inquest was officially opened into Miss Cross' death on Monday morning.

The young woman, who lived in Hinton-on-the-Green, near Evesham in Worcestershire, went missing from Evesham Community Hospital on Tuesday, November 10 – eight days before she was found in Cheddar.

South Worcestershire Police launched an appeal to find her as there was great concern for her health and safety as she had previously gone missing before being found in Sussex.

But the search for Miss Cross was complicated as she had many friends around the country and was last seen in the Oxford and Didcot area. She was also seen on a train in Reading.

Relatives and friends launched a large campaign to find her on social networking sites and websites dedicated to finding missing people.

Samaritans is a charity that helps people in distress or troubled by thoughts of suicide. They can be contacted by phone on 08457 909090 or by clicking the above web link.