SNOWDON CLIMBER HAD TAKEN COCAINE BEFORE FATAL FALL
AFORMER bodybuilder who fell to his death from Snowdon had taken cocaine at the top of the mountain. Malcolm Tinsley had also taken diazepam before he plummeted from the 3,560ft peak.
The coroner, at his inquest on Friday, said the cocaine would have made him less careful and that this might explain the tragedy.
Dewi Pritchard Jones said when cocaine played a part in deaths “a carefree attitude is part of the characteristics in all those cases”.
Mr Tinsley, 27, who had worked as doorman and was from St Helens in Merseyside, suffered an extensive head injury in the fall.
Stephen Brown told the inquest at Caernarfon that he had walked up the highest peak in England and Wales with Mr Tinsley.
He said: “Malcolm was taking telephone calls and making texts and kept catching me up. He found it hard going.
“He would have found it easy if he didn’t make the telephone calls or texts. He was lagging behind and having to run to catch me up.”
At the summit they took photographs. “At the very top he pulled out a bag and said ‘take a picture’. That’s the first time I’ve seen him with the cocaine.
“I presume he had been taking it going up. He asked me to take a photograph of him with a bag of cocaine at the top.”
Mr Tinsley had appeared happy. But 30 minutes after starting their descent the walk turned to tragedy. He heard Mr Tinsley shout “Ste” and he fell about 40ft. There was a rock face.
Mr Brown said: “I can only guess he lost his balance. He went and peered over the edge. It’s a jagged rock.”
Jason Tunnicliffe, who was with another group on the peak, said the pair had been laughing before the fall. He saw Mr Tinsley in the air “flipping” as he plunged to his death.
The coroner said he had come across cases of drugs being taken to help walkers cope with the strain of the physical exertion, and people falling on that area of the mountain wasn’t unusual.
He recorded the death, in July last year, was accidental.