A drug addict left a note for his parents explaining "the drugs got in the way" before he hanged himself, Dundalk Coroner's Court heard yesterday. The deceased man's father told the court his son had been off drugs for a year but had relapsed during the six weeks before his death.
The body of the 25-year-old Co Monaghan man was found hanging in the room of a guest-house in Dundalk he paid for before his death. The owner said when she called him for breakfast on June 6th he said he did not want any. When she called him repeatedly a couple of hours later there was no answer. She opened the door to see his body hanging.
He was pronounced dead in Louth County Hospital on June 6th. Garda Colm Dempsey of Dundalk Garda station searched the room and found a note addressed to his parents which he read into the court record. In it the deceased said: "I don't want this life on me and yous [sic] and I have no control over it."
He had £28,000 from a personal injuries claim, and the father said: "He had money all the time. He said he still had it and could continue using drugs and didn't want to . . . When he went back on the drugs he didn't want to cause us any pain."
Garda Dempsey also found a syringe and needle and a spoon which had traces of heroin on it. The Louth County Coroner, Mr Ronan Maguire, described the note as heartbreaking. "It is obvious he loved you [the parents] to a great degree and almost did what he did out of love. He had problems and to some degree he defeated them and it seems to be out of despair [because] the drugs got the better of him that this happened."
He recorded death in accordance with the medical evidence that it had been caused by hanging.
It is the policy of The Irish Times in reporting most inquests to protect the identities of deceased persons and/or their families