Canal tragedy of company director
A‘LOYAL and hardworking’ young man accidentally drowned in Marple Aqueduct while under the influence of cocaine and alcohol, an inquest heard.
Carl Bagnall, 26, was found dead in the canal in the early hours of January 8 this year.
An inquest at South Manchester Coroner’s Court heard that Mr Bagnall, from Marple, had struggled with depression and low mood in the past.
Friends and family, giving evidence, said he had relied on exercise and fitness as a ‘mood-buster,’ and had found it difficult when gyms closed during the coronavirus pandemic.
The young company director had been prescribed anti-depressants in the summer of 2020, but had stopped taking them, the court heard.
The pandemic had impacted on the claims management firm he ran with a friend, but his mum, Michelle Bagnall, said her son seemed optimistic about the future at the time of his death.
“He tried really hard and had really high standards for his business and if things didn’t go to plan he would get himself up again and try again,” Mrs Bagnall said in a statement read out in court.
“The gyms shutting had made him really edgy.
“He relied on the gym as his mood buster. His mood was very up and down, and he was angry that he wasn’t able to work out.
“But he had started January hopeful.”
Mr Bagnall had been living with his mum and stepfather at the time of his death, and during lockdown had drank alcohol to help him sleep.
“Not heavily,” added Mrs Bagnall.
“He had a very bad sleep pattern and he said it helped.”
Mrs Bagnall said that her son had talked to her about his cocaine use and how it affected him.
Despite his difficulties, Mrs Bagnall did not believe that her son would have deliberately tried to take his own life.
She said: “He seemed positive earlier in the evening.
“He was laughing and joking with us. He was talking about the following week.”
The night prior to his death, Mrs Bagnall had heard her son ‘up and down’ in the night.
At around 4.40am on January 8, she looked out of the window and saw her son standing outside wearing his sliders.
She assumed he was getting some fresh air and went back to bed, the inquest heard.
In the morning, some of Mr Bagnall’s friends and his uncle woke to a number of messages on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Some included a photograph of a bottle of rum and cocaine on his laptop,
while others indicated a ‘change of mood’ shortly after 2am, one saying that he ‘can’t handle this life much longer.’
In other messages, Mr Bagnall indicated that he was going to Marple Aqueduct, around 1.5 miles from his home.
Mrs Bagnall contacted the police to report him as missing, and friends went to the aqueduct where they spotted his sliders in the canal.
Greater Manchester Police recovered Mr Bagnall’s body from the water at around 3.35pm of January 8.
Police coroners’ officer Andrew Stevenson said that Mr Bagnall had made several requests for an Uber ride from around 4.45am but never got in any of the vehicles.
The last record of activity on his phone was around 6am.
Mr Stevenson said that water would have come up to around chest height, and would have been ‘much colder’ than 2 degrees that morning.
“The shock of the temperature can have such an effect on you,” he said.
“And if you’re intoxicated, it can inhibit your ability to recover from the water.”
He believed that Carl had entered the water near a narrow towpath that would have been dark at the time.
All of his possessions including his phone and bank card were recovered nearby.
Suspicious circumstances were ruled out of his death by police.
Senior coroner Alison Mutch, thanking family and friends for their evidence, said: “He was clearly a much-loved son and a much-loved family member.
“What also came across in your evidence is what a very hard working man Carl Bagnall was.
“If life knocked him down, he picked himself up and worked.
“He was someone who had struggled with his mental health but actually he found going to the gym helped him deal with the ups and downs of life.
“The lockdown and Covid restrictions did not help him at all. The first lockdown when gyms closed were tough for him.
“Then they re-opened and he went back to the gym. Over the Christmas
period and into January another lockdown, they closed again.
“For people like Carl, going to the gym was part of his day-to-day life and having that taken away was a significant blow to him.”
Ms Mutch said it could not be concluded with certainty that Mr Bagnall had intended to take his own life.
She said that the combination of alcohol and cocaine consumption would have impeded his decision making and his ability to get out of the water.
The coroner added: “What we know is that in the early hours of January 8, for reasons that are not entirely clear, Carl Bagnall took both cocaine and alcohol.
“The combination of the two is not a good combination.
“Both cocaine and alcohol have a significant impact on cognitive thought process, the ability to make good decisions and an additional impact on a person’s physical ability.”
Ms Mutch accepted a cause of death as drowning while under the influence of alcohol and cocaine.
She added: “I accept the evidence from the police coroner’s officer that the water would have been freezing.
“The cold would have been overwhelming and their ability to get out of the waterway would have been impossible.”
The coroner recorded a conclusion of accidental death.
‘He tried really hard and had high standards for his business’