A ‘GENTLE giant’ with everything going for him died of an accidental heroin overdose, an inquest heard.

Edward Hardy’s father Stanley told how he found his son lying on the floor in his York flat and tried to save him through CPR until paramedics arrived, but his actions were in vain.

He said his son suffered from epilepsy and his tongue was bitten, and there were also other indications he had experienced a seizure.

Edward’s mother Kay told the inquest she thought he might have been given the drug at a party which he had attended beforehand, and he might even have taken it through a ‘Mickey Finn,’ or spiked drink.

She said her son had been in employment and police had found nothing to suggest he was a heroin user.

She and her husband thanked police, paramedics and inquest officials for the compassion and care with which they had been treated since the tragedy, and for the way the inquest had been conducted.

“They were incredibly compassionate,” said Mr Hardy of the police and ambulance service.

The inquest at New Earswick was told that heroin was found in Mr Hardy’s blood after his death last October but no drug paraphernalia was found by police at his flat in St Mary’s, off Bootham.

His flatmate was shocked and ‘really, really upset’ by the news of his death.

Police initially treated the flat as a potential crime scene but concluded there were no suspicious circumstances.

York Coroner Rob Turnbull concluded that Mr Hardy died through an accidental overdose, saying there was nothing to suggest it had been a deliberate act.

He said Mr Hardy would have had a much lower level of tolerance to heroin if he was a ‘naive’ user.

There was some evidence of a possible assault on him previously but not at the time of his death.

He said he had built up a picture of Mr Hardy as ‘something of a gentle giant’, who had a ‘good life’, held down a job and had everything going for him.