SHOCKED eyewitnesses told how a woman narrowly missed passing shoppers as she fell to her death from the top of Carfax Tower.

Police cordoned off the 74ft tower in Oxford city centre at lunchtime today after the woman fell to the ground.

The woman hit the pavement in Queen Street, next to the Crabtree & Evelyn shop, yards from a row of telephone boxes.

Jackie Martin, 55, works for the city council’s temporary accommodation department opposite the tower and saw the incident.

She said: “I happened to glance out of my window and saw the woman climb over the parapet.

“At one point she was holding on to a stone ridge supporting the gargoyles.

“She seemed to swing out and let go as if it was a determined action – there’s no doubt in my mind that she jumped.

“I shouted ‘oh my God, I have just seen someone jump’ and immediately called the police, but I think a lot of other people did the same thing at the same time. I feel very shocked.”

Martin Kelly, 38, from Cowley, added: “I saw what I first thought was masonry falling and then it became apparent it was a woman.

“She almost landed on a few people – there were no screams, nothing before it happened.

“I think she was dead as soon as she hit the floor.”

James Lawson, 59, of Plowman’s Tower, in Northway, saw the woman fall after he came out of Lloyds TSB Bank, on the opposite corner of Cornmarket Street.

He said: “I looked up and I saw this figure falling.

“Then I heard screaming from the people sitting on the benches having their lunch. They all got up and ran round the corner into St Aldate’s.

“At the time the woman fell, there were two old boys using the phone boxes below the tower.

“This has shocked me, because it’s a life gone. I feel sorry for the woman’s family and I think the tower should be kept shut.

“I have lived in Oxford all my life and I think it’s the third time this has happened in my lifetime.”

Thames Valley Police spokesman Vicky Brandon said a woman in her 40s fell from the top of the tower. She has not yet been identified.

Ambulance staff were called to the scene at 12.25pm, and the woman was taken to hospital.

A spokesman for the NHS South Central Ambulance Service said: “We took a female patient to the John Radcliffe Hospital – she was in full cardiac arrest.”

Carfax Tower is owned by the city council and leased by Sightseeing Oxford, which also runs open-top bus tours of the city. It cost £2.10 for entry to the tower, or £1 for juniors.

The tower reopened to the public after 2pm as police continued their investigation.

Ms Brandon said the force was not treating the death as suspicious and added that the woman’s death was confirmed after she was taken to hospital.