Inquest rules on ‘sad tale of a wasted life’

Exeter student Gavin Britton died of alcohol poisoning after a night of voluntary drinking, an inquest has found.

The inquest, which took place on Tuesday February 26, was attended by Britton’s family and fellow students, and examined the events of Tuesday November 28 2006 in an attempt to determine the cause of his tragic death.

Coroner Dr Elizabeth Earland recorded a verdict of alcohol poisoning, citing “aspiration of gastric contents due to acute ethanol poisoning” as the reason behind Britton’s death.

Dr Earland declared herself convinced that he “voluntarily drank the alcohol that killed him, and had done so on a previous occasion,” alluding to an incident wherein Britton was found ‘drunk and incapable’ outside Timepiece and taken to hospital on Wednesday November 1 2006.

The coroner described the tragedy as “a sad tale of a wasted life”, and stated, “The evidence speaks for itself.”

The inquest heard that, when a post mortem and toxicology report were carried out the day after Britton’s death, his body was still three times over the drinkdrive limit.

Dr Paul Newman, a consultant pathologist at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital, said that Britton’s body was found to have 211mg of ethanol per 100ml of blood. The legal drink-drive limit stands at just 80mg. Britton also had 294mg of ethanol per 100ml of urine.

Dr Newman said that this amount was not usually enough to lead to death, but that Britton’s excessive alcohol consumption had caused him to inhale vomit into his lungs, resulting in asphyxiation.

Britton’s father Ian, his mother Susan and younger brother Darren issued a statement following the inquest. They said,

“We have lost a much loved son and brother who was a thoughtful and caring young man. When people such as Gavin go to university they enter into a community which families have little knowledge of.”

During the inquest, further details came to light about exactly what happened to Britton in his final hours.

On a ‘pub golf’ initiation social with around twenty members of the Golf Club, Britton was said to have consumed beer, cider, vodka, whiskey, Sambuca and wine. The pub crawl lasted three hours and featured 13 different bars, although Britton may not have visited all of them. The last time he was seen alive was in Timepiece at around 9pm.

It emerged that in the Brook Green Tavern in Well Street, barman Robert Legg mixed a green-coloured cocktail called a Jackson Five, and asked the students to nominate someone to drink it. He told them to “pick a prat.”

Although Mr Legg could not attend the inquest due to a medical condition, in a written statement he described how he mixed a single measure of gin and vodka with pineapple juice. When Britton was nominated as the cocktail’s drinker, Legg “told the male [Gavin] to stand on a small bar stool next to the toilets. I heard members of the group shout ‘Bolt it!’ while others took photos. The male drank it and then raced to the toilets.”

Another student said that after vomiting in the toilets, Britton was heard to say, “I’m fine. What was in that drink? It tasted like pure alcohol.”

The student speculated that Legg’s claim that the cocktail contained a single shot was untrue. He claimed there were in fact four double shots in the drink: “Vodka, gin, Malibu or Archers and another which I cannot remember. I can remember the landlord telling me, people usually drink it and run straight to the toilet.”

Other witnesses estimated there may actually have been as many as six double shots (12 measures of alcohol) in the drink. However, Mr Legg insisted that the Jackson Five, which he traditionally made for the Golf Club socials, “doesn’t normally have the effect of making people rush to the toilet.”

In the Black Horse pub in Longbrook Street, the golfers played a drinking game called Speedboat, which involves racing to down pints of beer.

Other bars visited by the group included the King Billy, the Old Fire House, Timepiece, Hole in the Wall, Hogshead, Walkabout and Mambos.

One student who attended the pub crawl commented, “There was a lot of pressure to keep up with our peers during the initiation ceremony.” However, another insisted, “No-one was pressurised into going along. There was no bullying.”

Britton’s body was discovered by a Royal Albert Memorial Museum employee at around 8am the next morning, in front of the Phoenix Arts Centre.

PC Adam Goodman described arriving on the scene and seeing “a body lying on the grass. There was vomit near the man’s face and I could smell an intoxicating liquid.”

It was also noted that a graze on Britton’s left hand suggested he had suffered a fall at some point during the night.
Britton, an 18-year-old fresher from Barton-on-Sea in Hampshire, was just weeks into his first year of an Accountancy and Finance degree at the University at the time of his death.

His family said, “We hope lessons can be learned from our tragedy.”