Rough sleeper’s death was caused by alcohol abuse

A drug and alcohol user died days after being found collapsed in Canterbury on a freezing winter night.

Rough sleeper Steve Broome was lying next to a wall in Station Road East near the homeless charity Catching Lives’ open centre.

An inquest in Canterbury last week heard that a passer-by came across the 50-year-old at just before 8pm on January 21 and called paramedics.

They discovered that Mr Broome had stopped breathing and had no pulse.

Paramedics attempted to revive him and he was taken unconscious but breathing to the Kent and Canterbury Hospital.

Dr Adebowale Adebayo told coroner James Dillon that Mr Broome had arrived after suffering a heart attack and went on to suffer further seizures.

He died five days later.

Dr Adebayo gave Mr Broome’s clinical cause of death as hypoxic brain injury caused by the cardiac arrest, which in turn was caused by alcohol poisoning.

Mr Broome’s mother Coral, who lives in Sandwich, said her son had started sniffing glue as a 14-year-old before turning to drugs and alcohol. He did some work as a farm hand before succumbing to intoxicants.

Mr Broome was frequently arrested for minor offences and had been in and out of prison over the course of his life.

“When he was younger, we tried to stop him,” Mrs Broome said. “But by the time he reached 30, we had to let him go.

“He stayed with friends in Canterbury but we also knew he had been sleeping on the City Wall.

“The way he died was absolutely horrendous.”

Mr Dillon recorded a conclusion of an alcohol-related death.