A MAN from Finchampstead died from a drug overdose while visiting a house that was well-known to police, an inquest has heard.
Robert Stephen O’Connell, 40, of Park Lane, died on the morning of Saturday, September 24 last year after injecting himself with heroin at a house in Budges Lane, Wokingham.
The house, which was well-known to Thames Valley Police for drug use and drug-related activities, was later subject to a three-month closure order.
The inquest, which was held at Reading Town Hall on Tuesday (14), heard how Mr O’Connell had been a regular ‘soft drug’ user, but had never used heroin before the night of his death.
Witness statements gathered by police on the day he died told how Mr O’Connell had gone to the house at around 10pm on Friday, September 23. The resident of the house, Tony Cook, told police that he didn’t know Mr O’Connell very well, but that strangers would often come to his house at all hours of the day and night to take drugs.
Wanted to try something new
On this particular evening, Mr Cook said there were a number of people at the house smoking crack cocaine, and Mr O’Connell was one of them. Another witness, Sean Primmer, said that he saw Mr O’Connell smoking ‘quickly and confidently’, like he had taken the drugs before.
Mr Primmer said in a statement: “Rob told us he had never done hard drugs before, but that tonight he wanted to try something new.”
The coroner, Mr Peter Bedford, shared evidence which suggested that Mr O’Connell had asked one of the people at the house if they had any drugs on them which he could buy, and one of them went out and purchased what appeared to be an amount of heroin.
Mr Primmer had said: “Rob told us he had taken valium and was a chemist, he seemed to know what he was doing.”
Mr O’Connell’s family said in a statement that they did not believe their son was a hard-drug user, but had a history of depression and anxiety for which he took various antidepressant medication.
Mr Primmer’s statement continued: “Rob and Tony went into a bedroom to take the drugs, but after a while I heard a noise and Tony started shouting at me to come in the room.
“I went in and saw Rob slumped against Tony, he was very pale and his lips were blue-ish. I told Tony we should call an ambulance, but he said that it wasn’t necessary as ‘he had seen this before’, so we put him in the recovery position and his colour started to come back into his face.
“We agreed that we would take it in turns to watch him throughout the night. I checked on him once and he was breathing, but then I fell asleep.”
Another witness, Phillip Manning gave similar evidence. He said: “I checked on Rob and he was snoring so I thought he was ok. I fell asleep and the next thing I knew Tony woke me up to tell me he had passed away.”
Paramedics and police were called shortly after 11.30am, but after finding no signs of life Mr O’Connell was declared dead at the scene.
A toxicology report, produced from blood and urine samples, showed a cocktail of drugs and alcohol in Mr O’Connell’s system, including valium, cocaine, morphine and codeine, the latter of which which were likely to have derived from heroin. The toxicologist Alicia Pitcher noted that the level of drugs in his system would have proved toxic even to someone with a high drug tolerance.
A post-mortem examination carried out by Dr Mabel Thyveetil at Wexham Park Hospital found no evidence of external injury or trauma, and no underlying medical conditions which could have led to Mr O’Connell’s death, and therefore recorded the cause of death to be drug toxicity.
Closure order
Mr Bedford said: “I have no doubt that there is no evidence that he deliberately overdosed to end his own life. If it was beyond all reasonable doubt that he intended to end his life then we would be considering a verdict of suicide, but that is a non-starter.
“There was a history of mental health issues going on in the background, but I don’t think that anything was missed or any more could have been done.
“There is no evidence of third-party involvement, and the police are satisfied that Mr O’Connell injected himself with the drugs.
“In the past we would have recorded the death as misadventure, but there is a lot of research being done into these kinds of death that we are now encouraged by the Chief Coroner to record a drug-related death, and that is what I shall do.”
Mr Bedford recorded that Mr Robert Stephen O’Connell died from a drug-related death.
A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police said: “Whilst there had been known drug use at this address, there had been no information in the months immediately leading up to Mr O’Connell’s tragic death which would have allowed officers to make use of closure order powers.
“These are only available in specific circumstances for a limited period.
“Officers were able to use the power subsequently to ensure the property did not become subject to other drug related activity”.
