Drug user overdosed at mother's house

Marcus Morris, 39, was found dead in his bed by his mother, Nicola Russell, on March 29 last year in Ringmer home.

Mr Morris, who had a flat in Hove but lived with his mother a lot of the time, had developed psychotic illness due to a long history of heavy drug use.

Mrs Russell, of Uckfield Road, said her son smoked crack cocaine and heroin.

He was sectioned in 1999 after developing psychosis and was taken to Mill View Hospital, Hove.

He continued to be treated there as an out-patient.

But at the time of his death Mrs Russell said her son was working hard to kick his habit and had come to stay with her to have a break from drugs.

She said: 'He often stayed with me for protracted lengths of time.

'During the times he stayed at his home he smoked heroin and crack cocaine, this he called self medicating.

'He did not conceal his drug taking from me, we were very open.'

Mrs Russell said she and her son had a pleasant time the day before his death .

She said: 'He was being nice that evening, he could be difficult to talk to, but not that night.'

Mrs Russell said she got up in the night and checked on Marcus to hear him snoring.

The next morning she found an empty bottle of methadone which had been washed out and said she assumed he had thrown it away.

She then left the house and it was not until that evening she became concerned she had not seen him.

She checked in his room to find him in his bed.

Coroner Alan Craze, at the inquest in Eastbourne on Tuesday, recorded a verdict of death by dependence on drugs.