A BROTHER-in-law of Virgin chairman Mr Richard Branson died after
carelessly taking more than 20 times the therapeutic level of a
codeine-based painkiller, an inquest heard yesterday.
Glasgow born Mr John Templeman, the brother of Mr Branson's wife,
collapsed in his basement flat in Holland Park, London, on January 7,
just hours after a private call-out doctor had prescribed 120
dihydrocodeine tablets to relive the pain.
Westminster Coroner's Court heard that Mr Templeman, 47, an office
manager, had injured his chest in an accident the previous week. Dr
Alistair Shaw saw Mr Templeman and diagnosed a rib fracture or muscle
injury.
Dr Shaw told the court a broken rib takes six to eight weeks to heal
and is very painful for the first two to four weeks. He said:''I wanted
to make sure he had adequate pain relief for the first two to four
weeks.'' He prescribed 120 tablets of 30mg dihydrocodeine. The correct
dosage is one tablet every four to six hours.
''He did not strike me as someone who would abuse drugs,'' said Dr
Shaw. ''The treatment I gave was fairly standard.'' He also prescribed
20 temazepam sleeping pills for insomnia.
Ms Rose Templeman, of Kensington, said her divorced brother had always
had problems sleeping and it was quite possible he often took more
sleeping pills than he should.
Mr Templeman died in St Mary's hospital after 90 minutes of
unsuccessful resuscitation. Pathologist Dr Iain West said Mr Templeman
had five broken ribs, some caused by the attempts to resuscitate him and
the others about a week previously.
Blood tests revealed a therapeutic level of temazepam, no evidence of
alcohol, but about 20 times the normal level of dihydracodeine.
''It would appear he has taken a moderate overdose of this drug,''
said Dr West. ''He has probably taken half a dozen at a time. He would
have been in quite a lot of pain from his ribs. He certainly has not
taken 70, 80, or 100 tablets.''
Coroner Dr Paul Knapman said: ''We are dealing with somebody who was
rather careless in taking medication from time to time.'' He recorded a
verdict of death by misadventure.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article