Man’s death will remain unexplained

THE death of a man at his home in Wargrave will never truly be explained, a coroner has ruled.

John Malcolm Easterbrook, 72, was discovered dead at his home in Fidlers Walk on October 12 this year, but his body may have remained undiscovered for a number of days following his death, an inquest held at Reading Town Hall on Friday, December 15 heard.

Mr Easterbrook’s daughters, Diana Pitman and Joanna Blair, were both in attendance for the inquest, which heard how Mr Easterbrook’s body was discovered after a postman complained to a neighbour that he could not deliver any more post to the address.

Neighbours called the emergency services, who broke into Mr Easterbrook’s home and found his partially decomposed body sitting in a chair in the living room.

A post-mortem examination yielded few results, and could offer no definitive reason for Mr Easterbrook’s sudden death, but a medical report from his GP surgery did show he had a history of heart failure.

The coroner, Mr Peter Bedford, told the two daughters that he had very little choice but to record a natural death.

He said: “It is difficult to pin down a time of death. People are often misled by what they see on television that death can be pinpointed to a narrow time window.

“Unless there is definite evidence to suggest what day it was, we can never know for sure.

“All I can ascertain is that your father was found in his chair. He hadn’t fallen down the stairs or suffered any sort of head injury that could have led to his death.”

The coroner recorded a verdict of natural causes.