A man found dead at an address in Forest Gate may have died as a result of drug use, a court has heard.
Henry Kwadwo Boafo Donkor, 40, was found dead by a support worker at a property in Romford Road on February 3.
An inquest was opened into his death on Wednesday, May 28, after East London Coroner’s Court received the results of toxicology tests from a pathologist.
Police deemed his death non-suspicious and referred it to the coroner’s court, which ordered a post-mortem examination.
After toxicology and histology tests (analysis of blood and tissue cells), pathologist Dr Ibrahim gave Mr Donkor’s cause of death as bronchopneumonia and cocaine intake.
“I have seen Dr Ibrahim’s final post-mortem report, dated the 18th of May this year,” said coroner Ian Wade KC.
“He notices quite a lot of decomposition in Henry’s body, which tends to make it that much more difficult to be precise about the primary cause of death."
He told the court Dr Ibrahim felt the drug "made a more than minimal contribution to his death".
This, said Mr Wade, rendered the death unnatural. As a result, he told the court, “an inquest is appropriate".
Inquests are held in public, in the public interest, to investigate unnatural deaths and whether future similar deaths could be preventable.
“It may well be that we can also look into the difficulties that it appears that Henry was having in getting support and accommodation,” Mr Wade continued. “But that is a matter for the final inquest.”
He provisionally listed the final inquest for November 20.
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