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Daily Record
Daily Record
National
Callum Cuddeford & Gemma Ryder

Scots physics student 'heard voice of Napoleon' before he died during drug battle

A Scottish student told doctors he heard the voice of 'Napoleon' before he died during a long battle with drugs.

Callum Brown, 24, who was living in London at the time of his death on October 19, 2021, told medics he was hearing 'voices' while studying theoretical physics at Edinburgh University.

The keen boxer was found by his girlfriend face down on the sofa with "discolouration on his back" when she had arrived home, My London reports.

An inquest heard today how she called medics and gave him CPR for 20 minutes before they arrived, but it was too late and he was declared dead at 9:28pm.

Callum, who was working as a financial sales consultant, had street heroin, methamphetamine, cannabis, and trace amounts of alcohol in his system.

However, Coroner Mary Hassel concluded it was the heroin that caused positional asphyxiation which led to his death at his Discovery Dock flat in Canary Wharf, East London.

His heartbroken father Alistair, from Glasgow, asked the coroner if his son's phone had been used to track the drug dealers as Calum's siblings and partner wept towards the conclusion of the hearing.

Coroner Hassle explained even though police were given access to his phone "huge backlogs" meant no guarantee of arrests, adding dealers are elusive.

Callum's death came after just one appointment with a new psychotherapist in London who told him to seek a psychiatric diagnosis before returning for more therapy.

Alistair had referred his son because he was concerned about his mental health.

The court heard how "sadly he never returned to his second session".

Calum reportedly took heroin and amphetamines from 2018.

The straight-A student told medics that he heard voices while studying in Edinburgh, telling one doctor he "had 6 voices, one of which was Napoleon".

The voices were either "complimentary or derogatory", according to psychiatrist Dr Denise Culshaw.

Despite presenting symptoms of psychosis, doctors concluded it was "unlikely he was suffering a psychotic illness" and he was discharged.

However, Calum's hallucinations led to at least one intervention by the NHS crisis team in Scotland.

During a breakdown in December 2018 he told medics he felt "socially isolated his whole life" and revealed he planned to buy drugs on the dark web.

He also told them he had "gone off on one" at the gym because he felt "superior to most men" and did not want to back down. They discharged him with benzodiazepines to help him sleep, which he also abused.

Pathologist Dr Alan Bates gave a statement that outlined how heroin's depressant effects leave the user unable to move to a safe sleeping position, causing them to "die painlessly in their sleep" as they cannot breathe.

Coroner Hassell concluded: "Calum had a long-time problem with drugs. He was on and off and at the time of his death he was taking drugs again.

"He took heroin, he fell asleep face down and then as a consequence he developed positional asphyxiation and then he died.

"It would not have been painful, he would not have been aware of it."

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