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Published: 07 July 2011
by JOSIE HINTON

A MAN who was found dead in his Camden Town hotel room while on a trip to the capital had “never been a happier” than on the evening before his death, an inquest heard.

Eric Winwood, 61, who was visiting London to celebrate his son’s 40th birthday, is believed to have fallen and hit his head in his room at the Holiday Inn hotel in Jamestown Road.

St Pancras Coroner’s Court was told how Mr Winwood, an engineer from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, had spent the evening of April 2 at Cotton’s Caribbean restaurant in Chalk Farm Road with friends and family, before returning to the hotel with his son, Ian, and ex-wife, Kathy Sledmere.

Ian, a sports and music journalist, told the hearing on Tuesday: “We all went back to my mum’s hotel room and I was presented with a bottle of champagne and a photo album with pictures of my grandparents and my parents – a kind of This Is Your Life album.

“My mum decided to go to bed so my dad and I retired to his room to have a drink of whisky. 

“I left and kissed him goodnight and there was nothing in my mind that thought he was too drunk.”

He added “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him a happier man than he appeared on his last night.”

The family had planned to watch a football match between Barnsley and Crystal Palace the following day but the next morning Mr Winwood failed to meet his son as planned, the court heard. 

Hotel staff used a pass key to get into the penthouse room, where Mr Winwood was found with an injury to his head.

Ms Sledmere said she saw paramedics arrive at the hotel and knew instinctively something was wrong with Mr Winwood.

A post-mortem examination concluded that Mr Winwood died from blood loss due to a laceration to the scalp, contributed to by alcohol intoxication and underlying hypertensive heart disease.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, coroner Dr Andrew Reid, said: “All the evidence I have points to this being an accident.”