Son of £1.6m Boohoo boss dies of overdose
Morphine kills 20-year-old at the family’s mansion
THE son of Boohoo’s chief executive has died of a drug overdose aged 20.
Louis Lyttle was found unresponsive in his bed at his family’s £3million mansion. Paramedics were called but were unable to revive him.
Louis, who also worked for the online fashion empire his father runs, died from a morphine overdose, an inquest heard on Monday.
His death occurred during lockdown in April but was not made public until the hearing.
His father John Lyttle, 51, has been the £1.6million-a-year CEO of Boohoo since March last year.
Louis was buried in the churchyard of St Lawrence’s, overlooked by the family home in the village of Seal Chart, near Sevenoaks, Kent.
A private footpath runs directly from the mansion to the grave, for now marked by a simple wooden cross with a small brass plate.
Louis, who was born in Galway, Ireland, attended the £40,000-ayear King’s School in Canterbury.
He left three years ago to study business management at Cardiff University but quit the course after two years. Having had work experience with a stockbrokers in Hong Kong, he completed a month as an intern in investment banking in London before joining the staff at his father’s firm a year ago.
He is understood to have worked in digital marketing and to have travelled regularly with his father to Boohoo’s Manchester office. Maid stone coroner Alan Blunsdon heard that Louis was found, not breathing, when he failed to get up for work at 5am on Monday, April 20.
Paramedics pronounced him dead at 6.20am. The cause of death was morphine toxicity. The inquest was adjourned pending a full hearing on September 24. Yesterday Louis’s family, whose home is behind security gates amid woodland and farmland, declined to comment.
A friend of the family from Galway said: ‘We’re all devastated to hear this has happened to their beautiful son, Louis. We had heard he had died during lockdown but had no idea of the circumstances. It’s just so sad.’ A spokesman for Boohoo said: ‘This is a very personal matter for the family.’
Mr Lyttle and his wife Clodagh have two other children, daughters Laura and Kate.
They bought their mansion eight years ago for £2.2 million. They met in their native Ireland in the 1990s
‘We are all devastated’
when both were fashion buyers for Primark. Mr Lyttle, a keen amateur marathon runner, became head of buying before joining Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia. He then spent five years at Matalan, returning to Primark in 2010 as chief executive.
Under his stewardship, sales rocketed to more than £7billion.
Mr Lyttle could reap a £50million bonus if he revives Boohoo’s share price, which has fallen by almost half amid claims the firm was supplied by a sweatshop in Leicester where packaging staff were paid as little as £3.50 an hour.
He announced an immediate independent review into the allegations about the suppliers, saying they were ‘totally unacceptable’ if true.