Death remains (From Warrington Guardian)

Death remains

a mystery

AN inquest has failed to uncover how a 40-year-old man died at a friend's flat in Latchford last year.

Joseph (Joe) Darcy died in the early hours of August 8 last year after spending the previous day with his friend Jimmy Peacock.

Joe and Jimmy regularly drank at Jimmy's flat and in town with friends from James Lee House.

One of those friends, Neil Englishby, was living with Jimmy the day Joe died.

The inquest heard that Jimmy told another friend, Donna Newton, that he and Neil had suffocated Joe and then had a drink to celebrate.

In a written statement, Donna said Jimmy had seemed out of sorts after Joe's death, she asked him what was wrong.

She said: "He said, 'It was me. Me and Neil smothercated (sic) him.

"We did it in the bedroom where he was asleep and we dragged him into the front room."

But both Neil and Jimmy told the inquest they would never have harmed Joe and branded Donna Newton's statement a 'fabrication' and 'codswallop'.

Jimmy said he was in the bedroom of his flat when Joe died in the front room. He said: "I heard a noise, got up to have a look and seen Joe like that."

He saw Joe lying on the couch in the living room.

He said he had seen Joe having fits before and thought he would just come out of it.

Neil Englishby returned to the flat and fell asleep watching a film.

He said: "I woke up about 20 past two in the morning, got up, picked up my can and went looking for Joe and I seen him on the chair.

"I went over and gave him a couple of shoves on his hand. He did not move. I put my hand on his back and he was cold."

Although Joe's friends thought he had a history of fits and he told staff at Warrington General Hospital he suffered regular fits, he had no medical history of fitting.

Consultant forensic pathologist Doctor Christopher Johnson said he could find no clinical or drug related reason for Joe's death and he could find no clear evidence that he had been suffocated.

Returning an open verdict, deputy coroner Dr Robert Hunter said: "Although I have reservations about the causes of his death, I feel obliged to return an open verdict.

"It means that no true verdict has been proven to the required standard of proof."