A LETHAL cocktail of alcohol and drugs killed a popular Malvern man at a homeless shelter, an inquest has heard.

Richard ‘Ricki’ Pullen was found unconscious by staff at Maggs Day Centre in Deansway, Worcester, on Christmas Day morning.

Sheila Mason, a project worker at the centre for more than seven years, told an inquest at Stourport Coroners Court she had known Mr Pullen for about 18 months through her work and described him as a “really nice man”.

“He was extremely grateful for everything we did for him,” she said.

“He never caused any problems at all.”

Ms Mason said she was aware the unemployed tool maker had a drink problem and was on prescribed medication, but did not have any reason to believe he took drugs.

The court heard the 36-year-old was a regular user of Maggs Day Centre and had come into the night shelter during a busy evening on December 24.

Ms Mason said: “Ricki came in as he usually did and I noticed he did seem a little more intoxicated than I’d seen him before.

“We’d got a couple of police officers in who often did checks and he started to be quite verbally aggressive to the PCs - I’d not seen him like that before.”

During the course of the evening, Ms Mason saw the divorced father-of-two take a small brown bottle containing liquid from another shelter user which she believed to be poppers - liquid chemicals which cause a rush when sniffed.

When she confronted him, he told Ms Mason he would “get rid of it”. She sought advice from her manager who took the bottle from Mr Pullen and put it in the bin. It was empty.

The former pupil of Dyson Perrins High School then went to sleep but staff were unable to rouse him when they came to wake clients at 6am on Christmas Day. He was taken to hospital where he was confirmed dead.

An autopsy revealed there were no physical factors to Mr Pullen’s death. Toxicology results showed he had levels of methadone in his blood which could be consistent with therapeutic use and 168mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood - equivalent to twice the legal drink drive limit.

The cause of death was determined as methadone poisoning contributed to by alcohol ingestion.

Coroner Geraint Williams said officers had not been able to find evidence of a methadone prescription for Mr Pullen and recorded a verdict of death by non-dependent abuse of drugs.

“I’m satisfied he was given methadone by one of the other clients,” he said.

Speaking after the inquest, Jane Stimson, wife of Mr Pullen’s half-brother Adam Stimson - who attended the inquest with Mr Pullen’s life-long friend Craig Walwyn - said her brother-in-law had struggled to cope with the breakdown of his marriage.

“He doted on his boys and he was very well liked,” she said.