A VERDICT of accidental death has been recorded at the inquest of popular Stourbridge man Kevin Lane.

The 43-year-old property developer was found dead at his Bagley Street home on June 27 surrounded by drugs and drug paraphernalia, Black Country Coroner’s Court was told at a final hearing today (Thursday).

Black Country assistant coroner Angus Smillie said police were called to the house in Lye after Mr Lane was found unresponsive in a rear upstairs bedroom by house-mate and long-time friend Wayne Jones who had received a series of texts from Mr Lane’s worried girlfriend Aimee Bensley.

The court, based at Oldbury, was told she had been concerned about Mr Lane, who had split up with a previous girlfriend two months earlier and lost his father a year ago, having not been able to make contact with him.

In a statement read out at the inquest she said Mr Lane had not worked for the last few months and had been taking prescription medication for his joints, having undergone a shoulder operation a few months ago, and he also “took other medication to help him sleep”.

She added that he “consumed a lot of alcohol – mostly beer” and “recently he’d been really going for it”.

Mr Jones, who had known Mr Lane for about 30 years, also said in a statement: “Kevin liked a drink and was a heavy drinker; he also smoked cannabis.”

But he stressed Australian-born Mr Lane, who had been renovating his Lye home, “wouldn’t have harmed himself in any way – he was not that sort of person”.

The court was told he was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after police arrived and the coroner said officers had “found nothing out of the ordinary other than signs of drugs in the room in which he was found”.

Reports confirmed alcohol and cocaine had been consumed by Mr Lane at some point prior to his death – and the coroner said he died of fatal arrhythmia due to hypertensive heart disease and cocaine abuse, and he recorded the death as accidental.