Fall tragedy of £35k gambling debt bodybuilder
A YOUNG man who racked up £35,000 of gambling debts killed himself by plunging from the ninth storey of a car park.
Cameron McGowan, 26, plunged from the Rochdale Exchange Shopping Centre onto Yorkshire Street on January 18, sustaining multiple fatal injuries.
At the inquest into his death, his distraught father Clive said: “What he did was totally unnecessary. He must have been out of his mind.”
Coroner Joanne Kearsley was told that Cameron, a warehouseman of Oldham Road, Rochdale, had declared himself bankrupt, accumulated £35,000 of loans and had struggled with gambling. In the bedroom of his home police round a note to himself saying: “Don’t gamble.’
He had started bodybuilding 10 years previously and had been taking steroids, his father told the hearing.
Cameron had split up with his girlfriend shortly before the tragedy and two days before he died he sent text messages to her telling her he had suicidal thoughts.
It prompted his ex to contact the police, who in turn contacted North West Ambulance Service.
Paramedics visited his home late on Saturday, January 16. Paramedic Joseph Barnes told the Rochdale inquest: “We asked him if he’d sent the text message and he said he had, but that he felt OK and just wanted to go back to bed.
“He said at the time he sent the message he was in a low mood. With Cameron not having had any contact with mental health services we recommended that we take him to A&E so he could speak to a mental health practitioner, but he said he didn’t want to go.”
Mr Barnes said they were with him for about 20 minutes and it was agreed that Cameron would see his GP.
Two days later shopping centre worker Tariq Zubear saw Cameron on CCTV monitors on the ninth floor of the car park, which is closed to the public. He said in a written statement to the hearing: “I saw a man walking round the car park and I made my way up to the ninth floor. He was stood on his tiptoes peering over the edge. We get a lot of people doing that several times a day, just to look at the view. He pulled himself onto the wall and I said ‘are you all right, mate’ and then he jumped from the edge.”
His father earlier told the inquest Cameron had started bodybuilding a decade previously and was taking steroids. He said: “His mother told him to stop, or he would be dead by 40. But his personality changed completely. He became much more withdrawn. He was taking other drugs too that he ordered from Germany.”
Mr McGowan said his son had been in a relationship for about two years and was struggling working 12-hour shifts. Det Insp David Crewe said there was evidence of recent self-harm on Cameron’s left arm. Paperwork detailing loans totalling £35,000 was also found in his bedroom.
Concluding that Cameron took his own life, Ms Kearsley told Mr McGowan: “What happened on January 18 was something totally and utterly unexpected. He wasn’t someone who had a particular history of self-harming. Yes, he was a man who had a number of problems – the break up of a relationship, and some suggestion he was using medication which was not prescribed and steroids.”
She said that on January 18 Cameron was ‘having thoughts about committing suicide and that is what he has done.’