A DRUNK man drowned when he drove his car into the canal after he tried to turn it round on the towpath.

Daxeshkumar Jayantilal Patel, 40, of Hawksley Street, Bolton, was three times over the drink-drive limit when he misjudged the manoeuvre beside Prestolee Locks in Little Lever early on New Year’s Eve, 2017.

The car tipped into the canal and Mr Patel was able to get out of the vehicle but fell into the water and drowned, an inquest into his death heard yesterday. Mr Patel called his wife to say his car was stuck in water, but rang off.

Coroner John Pollard ruled the death of the diabetic care worker as accidental. He said: “It seems to me very clear that Mr Patel has gone out in his car and he has for some reason had a lot of alcohol to drink and he would be affected by that.

“He had driven down this narrow path before deciding he needed to turn around. He has tried the manoeuvre and he has misjudged it and the car has tipped into the canal but he has still been able to get out but is still standing in water. Whether he tripped or fell, he has fallen into the water, which was no doubt very cold.

“I don’t believe for one minute he did it deliberately and I believe it was an accident.”

The inquest in Bolton heard that Mr Patel had driven his Toyota Auris along the canal bank to Prestolee Locks in Little Lever, some time after 6am.

Mr Patel’s wife Karunaben told the inquest that her husband had left their home in the early morning to see a client.

She said that later that morning at around 7.45am she had a call from her husband to say his car was stuck in water and he needed to phone the insurance before ringing off. When Mrs Patel subsequently tried to call him back she couldn’t get through to him.

The first she knew about her husband’s fate was when police called at her address at around 10.30am to inform her he had been found drowned in the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal.

An eyewitness Paul Cairns who was walking his dog along the canal called police after he and another walker saw the partially submerged vehicle and the body of Mr Patel in the water.

Mr Patel had become a diabetic in recent years and was dependent on insulin four times a day and lived on a strict diet, the coroner was told.

Dr Patrick Waugh a consultant pathologist said he had found highly elevated levels of alcohol in his blood with Mr Patel having 257 milligrams, when the legal driving limit is 80 milligrams. A half-empty one litre bottle of whisky was found in one of the car’s pockets.

Dr Waugh concluded the cause of Mr Patel’s death was caused by drowning by reason of the high level of alcohol intoxication

Evidence given during the inquest by PC Edward Lister, of Greater Manchester’s Police’s forensic collision reconstruction unit, noted in his report that there was a lack of lighting along the canal and at some point Mr Patel’s front offside tyre had been torn. In trying to turn the vehicle around it had gone over the canal edge and tipped into the canal with the front end submerged but not sufficiently for Mr Patel not to be able to get out.