A student from Exmouth died after returning home from a break in Japan where he was at university.
Harrison Beer suffered with chronic fatigue syndrome and had returned to the UK to visit his mother who was ill herself.
He had said before he left:”35 or so hours’ journey back to the UK - why must I live so far away.”
His mother said that her only son had taught himself to speak Japanese when he was just 12 and had won a scholarship to read chemistry.
But just days before he was due to fly back to university at Nagoya, 20 year old Harrison was found dead in his bed by his mother at her home in Exmouth.
His shocked mum found drug paraphernalia in his bed and said she was shocked that he had smoked heroin.
Kim Teed told the Exeter inquest that her son was happy and ‘loved his life out in Japan’ and was anti drugs.
But she said his chronic fatigue meant he could not sleep even when he was exhausted and he needed sleeping tablets which fuelled some depression.
She said she was ‘really shocked’ that he took any drugs and ‘certainly heroin’.
The assistant Devon coroner Luisa Nicholson said Harrison’s cause of death was ‘unascertained’ and recorded an open conclusion.
She said it would not be fair on Harrison to say it was a drug related death because ‘we don’t know what happened’.
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