A MAN lay dead in his room at homeless person’s hostel for four days before his body was discovered.

An inquest in Bolton heard that Anthony Freeman had taken a cocktail of drugs including almost three times a lethal dose of heroin as well as amphetamine, ecstasy and alcohol.

The last time 23-year-old Mr Freeman was seen alive at Muamba House in Duke Street, Bolton was on September 9 last year.

His body was discovered by his key link worker, Ethel Amadi, who went to his third floor room on September 13 after realising he had not been seen by any staff for several days.

She told how she found Mr Freeman slumped in a chair with his head on a table and music playing on the television.

Assistant coroner Timothy Brennand asked whether loud music being played constantly for days would not have alerted staff to a problem earlier. “If it had been that loud someone from the other rooms would have come down and said,” she said, adding that no residents had complained.

The inquest heard how Mr Freeman had a problem with binge drinking, consuming a litre bottle of vodka at a time, but was not believed to have involvement with drugs.

The last person to see Mr Freeman alive was fellow resident Keith Fielding, who had been required to attend the inquest but refused to turn up. In a statement he had previously provided he claimed Mr Freeman had asked him to get some heroin on September 9. He claimed he had refused, but he had then seen Mr Freeman with the drug in his room. “I was surprised as I did not know him to use heroin,” he stated.

Pathologist Patrick Waugh told the court that, for a naive drug user, the amount of drugs taken was fatal.

Members of Mr Freeman’s family were concerned that Mr Fielding was not at the inquest to answer questions. Mr Brennand stressed that a police investigation had concluded that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death and speculated that Mr Freeman may have been experimenting with drugs.

Recording an open conclusion, he said: “There is nothing in the deceased’s history that suggested, at any stage in the past, he has been experimenting with drugs. This leaves the family bewildered and at a loss to understand the circumstances of the death”

It was the second tragedy within five months for Mr Freeman’s family after his sister, Lucy Barlow died, aged three months.