Man's insulin death was misadventure

Jamie Hanney, 27, who lived in Sea Road, had been drinking wine and chatting with mates at home when he picked up a syringe which he emptied into his stomach.

He did this again half an hour later and then fell asleep before slipping into deep coma caused by hypoglycaemia.

An inquest into his death on November 5 2009 was held at Hastings Law Courts on Wednesday when coroner Alan Craze heard witnesses piece together the events leading to Jamie’s death before recording a verdict of misadventure.

Steven Davis, 29, from Brighton, told how he had been staying at Jamie’s flat and they had been drinking during the day with another friend, Tod.

A diabetic who required four injections of insulin a day, Mr Davis had dozed in the early evening and woke hours later at 10pm to find Jamie himself asleep and snoring loudly. By this time Mr Davis needed his final injection of the day and found the insulin cartidge where he left it, but by now empty.

He noticed soon after Jamie had stopped snoring and gradually realised something was wrong before calling for an ambulance.

Paramedics arrived at approximately 10.30pm and attempted resuscitation but declared the patient dead 40 minutes later.

When questioned during the inquest by Jamie’s mother, Anne Hanney, Mr Davis was unable to recall much detail and told her: “I am sorry. I was drunk.”

His evidence was described as “vague” by Mr Craze, who based much of his decision-making on the “absolutely crucial” evidence given by Ayodeji Aromolaran – known as Deji – travelling down from Lancashire for the hearing.

He had been resident in Sidley at that time and visited the Sea Road flat in the late afternoon where he socialised with Jamie and Tod while Steven Davis was asleep.

He told the coroner he had clear recollection of Jamie twice injecting himself under his T-shirt and discarding the syringes, and that no-one asked why he was doing it.

“He did it entirely by himself,” he told the coroner.

“He acted like he knew what he was doing – like he was using medication.”

Mr Craze felt there was no doubt that the deceased had administered insulin to himself but could not understand why. He asked Sussex Police’s DC Carol Shoesmith for her thoughts.

She suggested from her brief dealing with Jamie that he was a young man who would try something just to see what would happen.

DI Ian Williams suggested that he was prone to attention-seeking behaviour, an opinion echoed by his mother who agreed he did this because of low self-esteem.

Not allowed to express any views during the inquest was Jamie’s partner of eight years, Mark Brittle, who owned the flat unemployed Jamie lived in.

He was not considered a “properly interested person” by the coroner because he was not family or spouse, or a witness.

He told the Observer: “Jamie was an ebullient, amazingly cheerful, happy, lovely person. He was like a comet in the sky – he had one of those enormous personalities. He was very sunny. People adored him. He was very much larger than life.”