Former art student had taken heroin which looked ‘different’

A FORMER art student had taken a batch of heroin which looked “different” from usual in the hours before he died, an inquest has heard.

Harry Lee Garratt’s girlfriend found the 21-year-old lying on the sofa in their Swansea flat when she got home from work. There was a tourniquet around his arm and drugs paraphernalia scattered on the floor.

A post-mortem examination gave the cause of the death of the former art student as poisoning from heroin and cocaine.

An inquest at Swansea Civic Centre heard Mr Garratt moved to Swansea in September 2018 from his native Surrey to be with his Welsh girlfriend, Caitlin McDonald.

The court heard the pair liked to party and take a range of drugs, including cocaine, heroin, Valium, and the sedative Xanax, sometimes spending some £600 a week on illicit substances. The pair would “frequently lose days” under the influence of narcotics, the inquest was told.

South Wales Police PC Josh Ashby, the officer who responded to the emergency call to the pair’s flat on The Promenade and who subsequently prepared a file on the death said that on September 9 last year the pair bought a £20 bag of heroin from their “usual source” but the drug appeared “different” to usual and seemed to be more potent.

Mr Garratt “took a few hits” from the drug and then passed out.

He subsequently vomited in his sleep and was placed in the recovery position by his partner.

The following morning Miss McDonald wrote a note for her boyfriend in which she implored him to: “Please don’t take any more of that sh*t today - you could have died last night”. She then went to work.

When she returned to their flat just before 6pm she found his cold body on the sofa.

She called 999 and performed CPR on her partner but he could not be saved.

Acting senior coroner for Swansea and Neath Port Talbot Mr Colin Phillips returned a conclusion that Mr Garratt died of an accidental overdose drug-related death.