Dad of man who died after taking cocaine speaks of his sadness

The jury at an inquest into the death of Matthew Lynn, 27, of Gosport, found he died from the effects of cocaine.

Matthew’s father, Peter Lynn, spoke of his pain after his son moved from Yorkshire to Gosport to escape drugs.

‘Matthew realised taking drugs was no life and was starting to enjoy himself again. He wanted to go travelling and break from his old friends rather than do drugs,’ he said.

‘He seemed OK when we saw him before this happened. Unfortunately he had a relapse which resulted in his death.’

The inquest at Portsmouth Coroner’s Court – which saw a unanimous verdict returned – heard Mr Lynn, 27, had taken cocaine over the weekend of February 4 last year while out with friends.

He went on a four-day session resulting in taking more cocaine on February 7 which led to his death.

Housemate Christopher Nicholas said Mr Lynn was paranoid someone was after him so called for an ambulance to their Lees Lane home.

‘He was paranoid someone was outside and they wanted to kill him. He was frantic, hyper and tense,’ Mr Nicholas told the inquest.

But fearful of his behaviour, paramedics remained in the ambulance outside the house waiting for police to turn up.

But before he could get treatment, Mr Lynn ran to the McColls store on Forton Road, shouting someone was after him and was going to kill him.

CCTV footage from the shop showed Mr Lynn running up and down the aisles throwing cans and bottles of alcohol before smashing through a door where the tills were.

Two passers-by restrained Mr Lynn before police turned up and handcuffed him until he calmed down.

He then started having a fit and was taken to Queen Alexandra Hospital and continued fitting in the ambulance.

At QA he was put into an induced coma before he died of multiple organ failure on February 17.

Summing up the conclusions of the pathologist Dr Amanda Jeffrey and QA’s Dr McNicholas, coroner David Horsley said there were no injuries from the restraint of Mr Lynn while the underlying culprit for his problems was cocaine intoxication.

Dr McNicholas had concluded that it was difficult to tell whether the two-hour time gap from restraining Mr Lynn to when he received treatment by medics was significant enough to have played a role in his death.

But the jury found the restraining and time it took to treat him did not play significant roles in his death after his ‘delirious’ behaviour spiralled out of control.

Mr Horsley said: ‘Matthew used cocaine and other substances on a social basis to enhance a night out. He would go on all-out benders.

‘But he was not someone who would fit with the conception of a normal drug addict. He was held in high regard by his employers and didn’t use the drug on a daily basis.

‘Matthew did take more than he could handle sometimes though and this led to manic behaviour.’

He added: ‘On the night in question his behaviour was erratic and bizarre – there was clearly something different happening in his body to other occasions which led to his death. It is a sad story for Matthew who died in unfortunate circumstances.’