9:20pm Friday 26th February 2010
A FORMER motor dealer from Sutton Scotney fell and banged his head near the bottom of the stairs of his home, an inquest in Winchester heard.
William Jeremy Bensted, aged 77 of Rumwood, Norton, lived alone but was known to be alive the day before his body was discovered on August 31 last year.
The alarm was raised when acquaintance Stuart Payne was alerted to Mr Bensted's non-appearance and he saw the deceased, half clothed on the floor when he peered through the letterbox.
Mr Bensted was a regular and sometimes heavy drinker.
Stuart Payne said: "We once had to bring him back from a friend's house where he had 'lost the use of his legs, as he put it'."
Neighbour Alexander Temple, who rented a property from Mr Bensted, told central Hampshire coroner Grahame Short that he was aware that the deceased had alcohol problems.
"He told me personally that he drank too much," said Mr Temple. "He didn't appear debilitated and lame and could go up and down stairs but he had fallen at least three times that I knew about prior to his final fall."
He had also lost his driving licence due to drinking.
Consultant pathologist Hayley Burnley said Mr Bensted had suffered an intracerebral haemorrhage and a 3cm fracture of a bone at the base of the brain likely caused by slipping, falling back and hitting his head on a hard surface.
Coroner Grahame Short, said: "We do not know how he came to hit his head although it is probable that alcohol was a factor."
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