A 48-YEAR-OLD Wye Valley man died at home after taking numerous illicit drugs, an inquest has heard.

At Hereford Coroner’s Court, the inquest into the death of David Moore heard that his partner, Danielle Parry had woken up on November 13, 2024, at around 4am, and noted he was alive, but when she woke up at 9.15am, she found him unresponsive.

She called for an ambulance and while waiting for medical help she started CPR.

However, when the paramedics arrived at Morley Square by air ambulance, they took over CPR but were unable to resuscitate Mr Moore. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Mr Moore’s aunt, Susan Hicks said that her lasting memory of her nephew was being a normal boy who occasionally got into trouble.

She said: “When David left home, he joined the fair, and this is where he was introduced to drugs. His parents later paid for him to attend a rehab clinic, and he became clean from drugs.

“But it wasn’t long before he got back into drugs. Despite his parents trying to help him, the problem just got worse. But for whatever reason nothing, or nobody seemed to be able to help him.

“David did go to prison several times, as a result of turning to crime to try and feed his drug habit.

“He was unable to break his habit. He was a prolific drug taker and unfortunately this is what led to his sad demise.”

The inquest was told that a postmortem was carried out by Katie Dickenson, a Herefordshire pathologist and in her opinion the cause of Mr Moore’s death was mixed drug toxicity and added there were no significant findings that could alone count for his death.

The assistant coroner for Herefordshire Roland Wooderson said a report from a consultant toxicologist who concluded that Mr Moore’s urine sample suggested that had taken cannabis, cocaine and morphine along with benzodiazepine, prior to his death.

He said it was not possible to test for the full toxicological status and whether the drugs consumed were at fatal levels.

The consultant pointed out that when the drugs that had been taken by Mr Moore in combination, carry a risk of toxicity.

Kris Rothert, operations manager at Turning Point, Herefordshire’s drug and alcohol recovery service told the inquest that Mr Moore had engaged with them on a number of occasions and added that on October 8 last year he made contact with the service stating that he had been appearing at Kidderminster Magistrates Court and had missed his pharmacy appointment. He told them that he had instead purchased illicit methadone.

Mr Rothert added: “A review of Mr Moore’s care was carried out by the service following his death and it was noted that drug rehabilitation requirement sessions were in place.”

Mr Wooderson said that it was clear from the evidence that despite medical intervention the paramedics pronounced Mr Moore deceased at the scene. He noted the summaries of the pathologist and the toxicologist that the cause of death was mixed drug toxicity.

Coroner’s conclusion: Drug related death.