Student is killed ‘sliding nude down banister on LSD’
A CAMBRIDGE student who fell to his death may have been sliding down a banister while high on LSD, a coroner heard yesterday.
Thomas Millward, 19, was found naked at the bottom of a staircase at 148-yearold Girton College and died from head injuries in hospital the next day.
The first-year engineering student might have been streaking with a friend, although the second person has never been identified, the pre-inquest review was told.
Statements from other students revealed Mr Millward’s clothes were found at the scene, and there had been ‘two people running up and down the corridor’.
A footprint was also found on top of a nearby vending machine, although it is not clear who made it and when. Cambridge- shire Police said at the time of the death on March 5 last year that it was not suspicious. Mr Millward’s girlfriend, Daniella Mieloszyk, was arrested on suspicion of supplying drugs but released without charge. She will give evidence at the inquest.
A close relative of the undergraduate, Dr John O’Driscoll, told the hearing in Huntingdon: ‘We would just like to know the truth as far as possible. Was he sliding down the banisters, was he balancing and fell, or was he on the vending machine?
‘Our suspicion was that he was doing a streak. There cannot be another reason.’
Evidence about the level of LSD in Mr Millward’s system will be heard during a threeday inquest, due to take place later this year. A jury will be called because the college had a duty of care to Mr Millward under health and safety laws. It was issued with an improvement notice in October for not having a risk assessment procedure in place for the handrails on the stairs.
Coroner Simon Milburn said the height of the handrails would not meet current regulations but they cannot be applied retrospectively.
The teenager’s father Brian,
‘Suspicion he was streaking’
who attended with his wife Maisa, asked why there had been no post-mortem examination. He said it would give an indication of the height fallen or whether Mr Millward, who occasionally suffered joint problems from playing rugby, fell when his knee gave way.
The coroner said such a decision was ‘not unusual’ as the doctor that attended the scene gave ‘some certainty about the cause of death’.
Peter James, representing the college, asked for a report of the effects of LSD to be made available to the jury.
Referring to the other streaker, he added: ‘ The second person has never come forward. We suspect someone may not be telling us something.’