Accountability for the death of 26-year-old Demi Agolia from Britain, who died after buttocks lifting surgery in Turkey, is being sought by her family, who have appealed to the British courts.

At Wednesday’s hearing, a coroner testified that the 26-year-old Bretan woman was not properly informed about the surgery and was not properly cared for before and after the operation.

In the same proceedings it was testified that the procedure for the 26-year-old was “truly brutal.”

As her partner, Bradley Jones, testified, Agolia traveled to Turkey for the surgery after seeing celebrity advertisements on social media for Istanbul-based Comfort Zone Surgery.

The mother of three – the youngest just seven months old – was allegedly “conscious of her appearance” and insisted on undergoing the procedure, in which fat is taken from other parts of the body and injected into the hips and buttocks.

Describing what happened after the operation, the 26-year-old’s partner testified that she was “shaking” and looked “very, very cold”. According to him, staff from Comfort Zone Surgery were called to the villa where Agolia was staying after she complained of chest tightness. These personnel, her companion said, checked her blood pressure but did not inspect the area of the surgery or check her heart rate and pulse.

After the visit, the 26-year-old collapsed in the villa and was taken to a hospital, where she died on January 8, three days after the operation.

The investigation that followed showed that the people from Comfort Zone Surgery who were called to the villa were not qualified nursing staff. As told in court their “totally bizarre” actions included trying to feed the 26-year-old with pieces of cucumber after she collapsed.

“The lack of appropriate care and response, particularly the failure to address post-operative complications, is likely to have played a significant role in the tragic outcome for the 26-year-old,” a plastic surgeon testified

For his part, coroner John Pollard ruled that the cause of death was a microscopic fat embolism in which tissue leaks into the bloodstream. “I find that there was not proper informed consent in this matter, there was not proper preoperative care and advice and there was not proper postoperative care,” Pollard added.