A YOUNG Dad from Chirk died as a result of his drug taking, an inquest has heard.

Anthony James Clark was just 30 when he was found lying on his back in the living room of the house he shared with his partner Alice Dowd on the morning of Saturday, December 16 and was rushed to the Wrexham Maelor hospital, where he died the next day.

Senior Coroner John Gittins, told the Wrexham Guildhall hearing that Mr Clark was a loving family man and father and it was because of that love that he kept his problems with drugs to himself, including a £200 a day heroin addiction, which he had bravely managed to overcome last year.

Mr Gittins told the court that despite a successful attempt to resuscitate Mr Clark, he was declared to have suffered irreparable brain damage, with the family forced to make the agonising decision to switch off his life support machine.

It was revealed that Mr Clark, who worked as a roofer after leaving school, had spent the Friday evening at home with his partner drinking wine, taking cocaine and diazapam and it was the toxic effects of both of those drugs that had caused aspiration pneumonia and an infection of the lungs.

Dr Mared Owen-Casey, who undertook the post mortem on Mr Clark's body, said in a statement that the infection inside the lungs had resulted in his brain being deprived of oxygen to such an extent that it had resulted in his death.

On reaching a conclusion of a drug related death, Mr Gittins thanked the family for their very kind decision to donate Mr Clark's organs, including his liver, kidneys and pancreas and passed on his sincere condolences on several levels.

He said: "Anthony's death has undoubtedly left a huge gap in all of your lives and he was far too young an age for you to have lost him. You also have the added burden of finding out how and why he died and learning things about him that he would have chosen to keep from you out of the love he had for you."