Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
‘IT RUINS LIVES’
FAMILIES’ GRIEF AS PAIR KILLED BY NEW STREET DRUG EXPERT WARNS OF ‘SHARP INCREASE’ IN CHINA WHITE USE
Two Canterbury musicians found dead in the same house just five days apart had taken a deadly street drug dubbed China White, an inquest has heard.
The bodies of James Truscott, 25, and Maximum Martin, 35, were discovered at the property in Tudor Road, Wincheap.
They both had high levels of fentanyl in their blood, an opiate said to be 16 times more powerful than morphine.
The separate inquest hearings took place one after the other at Canterbury Magistrates Court yesterday (Wednesday)
Coroner James Dillon was told that Mr Truscott was the first to die on August 24 followed by Mr Martin on August 29. His body was discovered alongside a third man, 22-yearold Joshua Lambert-price, whose inquest is due to take place on January 24.
All three were familiar faces on the city busking and music scene.
The inquest was told how Mr Truscott, a former Chaucer School student, who usually lived in Heaton Road, had been staying temporarily at the house in Tudor Road where his friend Mr Lambert-price rented a room.
The most detailed evidence largely came in a statement to police from Mr Lambert-price who himself was found dead in the same house five days later.
In it he said he was trying to help his friend get off drugs and “sort himself out”. “Every time he wanted to take drugs, I told him to have some food,” he said.
Mr Lambert-price found him slouched against a wall with an open laptop in front of him with the residue of white powder on it.
“His eyes were open and I called out and shook him. He did not respond and his lips were white and I couldn’t feel a pulse.”
He tried CPR to revive Mr Truscott while his girlfriend Ayla Price called an ambulance. But paramedics couldn’t save him either.
Tests later found he had 72mg of fentanyl per litre of blood in his system. A pathologist said the fatal level could be as low as 3.1mg.
Coroner James Dillion ruled that Mr Truscott his death was “drug related” from illicitly obtained fentanyl. He gave the same ruling on Maximum Martin, who lived in New Dover Road but often visited the house in Tudor Road where he died on August 29.
His body was discovered alongside that of Mr Lambert-price by a friend after Mr Lambert-price’s girlfriend had raised the alarm when she could not contact him.
The coroner heard that Mr Martin had a fentanyl reading of 12mg.
A police investigation concluded there had been no foul play in the deaths.
Mr Martin’s cousin, Rebecca Martin, who lives in St Dunstan’s, said Max had been a regular drug user, who “found it hard to say no to anything offered to him”.
“He wasn’t stupid but told me he had done a lot of drugs in his life.”
After the hearing, Mr Martin’s brother, Arthur Martin, who runs an online wholefoods business, warned of the dangers of illicit drugtaking. “It cost Max his life and has caused great grief and distress for the family,” he said.
“All we can do is urge people not to do it because ultimately it ruins lives.”