Andrew Leighton

Andrew Leighton died from an overdose of anti-depressants at his home in Craven Street, Birkenhead.

A couple were charged with his manslaughter by gross negligence, but nothing more is known, however, his death is still reported as being unsolved.

The couple appeared at Liverpool Crown Court in June 2001 accused of unlawfully killing him between 30 June and 3 July 2000.

They also denied ill-treating him between 28 October 1997 and 3 July 2000.

Andrew Leighton was found dead in his bedroom with blue lips and froth around his mouth.

It was heard that there were 100 Prothiaden tablets strewn across the floor and in a grey container in the room, which looked and tasted like sweets to a child, and that in addition to those, there were 12 tablets in his bunk bed, and that two more half chewed and sucked tablets were found stuck to the right shoulder of his pyjama shirt.

The police found over 1,000 Prothiaden tablets in total in the house, as well as a total of 1,900 tablets of a variety of medicines.

The man had been prescribed the drug, in capsule and tablet form, following a road traffic accident in 1994 after which he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.

At the trial, the prosecution said:

Andrew Leighton's 22-year-old mother called 999 shortly after 10am on 2 July 2000 and told the operator that Andrew Leighton was dead.

She said:

When she was asked how the tablets came to be in his room, she said she didn't know, claiming that they were normally kept in the top unit of the kitchen cupboard.

When a doctor arrived, he estimated that Andrew Leighton had been dead for between 6 and 12 hours.

The court also heard that Andrew Leighton's mother had suffered from epilepsy since falling from her bicycle in 1989 and had numerous fits that she had difficulty controlling because she did not take her medication regularly. The court also heard that she had dropped Andrew Leighton in 1998 during an epileptic attack.

It was further heard that the couple’s relationship had problems, and at the time of Andrew Leighton's death the man was no longer sleeping with her, but instead had been sleeping downstairs on a settee.

Andrew Leighton had also been admitted to hospital in May 1999 after having drunk Dettol, and in 2000 had been seen by his mother with a bottle of bleach. However, the court heard that those warnings that he might take dangerous substances were not heeded.

Andrew Leighton's mother said that on the night of 1 July 2000 that she put Andrew Leighton to bed at 7pm and waited for him to settle and then went to a friend's house, returning at 9pm to run a bath.

She said that she then heard him shouting 'mummy', and listened out, but thought that he had gone back to sleep and didn't hear anything more from him.

However, nothing more is known about the case and it is still being reported in the newspapers as unsolved.