Beat the booze before it kills you, pleads victim's daughter

THE daughter of a man who drank himself to death has pleaded with alcoholics to seek treatment and avoid a similar fate.

THE daughter of a Rotherham man who drank himself to death has pleaded with alcoholics to seek treatment and avoid a similar fate.

Emma Coddington (25) discovered the body of her father, Derek Coddington (49), at home in April last year, an inquest in Rotherham heard on Wednesday.

It was told how retail canvasser Mr Coddington, of Davis Street, East Dene, had battled with alcoholism for many years, drinking up to eight litres of cider each day in the weeks before his death.

Speaking after the hearing, Miss Coddington said: “If anyone out there thinks they’ve got a drinking problem, get it checked out.

“Don’t mess about—if you’re an alcoholic, one day it will catch up with you.”

Miss Coddington told the inquest that she received a call from Mr Coddington’s sister on the day he died, saying that he had had a fit and was afraid of having another one.

She and a friend forced entry to her dad’s flat when she saw his body on the floor through a window.

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They tried in vain to resuscitate him until paramedics arrived and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police found pools of blood coughed up by Mr Coddington beside his body and on his bedroom floor, as well as several empty cider bottles in his kitchen.

Miss Coddington spoke of how her struggling father would keep several three-litre bottles of the cheap booze in his fridge at once, ploughing through two or three in a single day.

His ex-wife, Laura Coddington (45), described how he would drink “from getting up in the morning to going to bed,” eventually causing the break-down of their marriage.

A statement by GP Dr Zia Ibrahimi said that Mr Coddington had approached him in 2004 for treatment for alcoholism, but had relapsed just two days later.

He agreed to treatment by the Clearways drug and alcohol service in 2010, but continued drinking heavily—up to 250 units each week—until his death one year later.

Consultant pathologist Dr Ali Hussain of Rotherham Hospital confirmed that Mr Coddington’s heart, liver and pancreas all showed signs of alcohol-related disease.

He said: “I have concluded that alcohol played a major role in his death. It was a major factor in causing pancreatitis and liver sclerosis. People with liver sclerosis are at risk of a sudden death.”

Dr Hussain added that Mr Coddington had blood in his mouth at the time of death—a common feature in cases of death caused by liver disease.

He described how Mr Coddington’s blood alcohol level was low when he died, but said that the strain put on his failing organs by years of alcohol misuse had become too much for his body to bear.

Recording a verdict of misadventure, the Rotherham Coroner, Ms Nicola Mundy, said: “In my view, the most significant findings were regarding his pancreas and liver, which had been affected by excess alcohol intake over the years.

“It was that which Mr Coddington succumbed to.

“Mr Coddington had a history of chronic excess alcohol intake.

“There were occasions where he did try to engage medical services to manage his difficulties. Following detox he didn’t drink, but he relapsed.

“Shortly before his death he expressed a wish to go on another detox programme—sadly other events intervened.”