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Paul Wardle

Age: 19

Sex: male

Date: 6 Mar 1983

Place: Eastern Avenue, Speke

Paul Wardle was found dead at his home in Eastern Avenue, Speke, on 7 March 1983.

His mother claimed that he was murdered.

A glue soaked plastic bag covered his head, his mouth was stuffed with cotton wool and his hands were tied behind his back and to his belt.

His inquest returned an open verdict after it was heard that questioned over his bindings remained unanswered. 

His mother said:

I spend every waking hour wondering what happened. I'm sure Paul wasn't a glue sniffer, but my boy is lying in the cemetery where he was buried as just another glue sniffer.

She added that admitting that Paul Wardle had tried glue once or twice, had been the biggest mistake of her life. She said:

I found out from his diary that he had tried sniffing glue. It said that he had been urged to try it by some of his friends, and had done so and didn't like it. The next time he tried it he was sick and wrote in his diary, 'Don't like it, will not do it again'.

She said that Paul Wardle had been a teetotal, non-smoker and that she beleived the only reason he tried it was because his friends had called him chicken. 

She said a later entry in her diary said:

Have had no more bother with stuff I mentioned before.

however, following the inquest, she wrote a letter to the Home Secretary stating that she was certain that Paul Wardle didn't do it to himself. she said:

It was just so out of character. I just want justice, I feel he has been badly done by. My eldest son has even been talking about offering a £1,000 reward for a new lead on my son's death.

She said that she thought that someone, somewhere knew how Paul Wardle had died, noting that the police had just assumed that he had done it himself because the house was locked from the inside. However, she noted that the latch off his window had been off. 

She added:

All I want to do is defend a good boy. At the time we wanted to bury him with difnity, not screaming about the way he died. Now I just want justice.

It was noted that her local MP had been helping her in her fight and that she had taken the case to the Home Secretary.

At his inquest, it was heard that Paul Wardle could have been:

Dicing with death for kicks.

A Home Office pathologist gave his course of death as from inhaling Toluene, a major constituent of the adhesive. 

At the time of the inquest, Paul Wardle's mother had said:

I am not saying that Paul didn't sniff glue because he admitted by his own hand that he did, but Paul knew the dangers of glue sniffing and the dangers of plastic bags.

After hearing the evidence, the Coroner said:

In view of the circumstances in which the death took place involving the plastic bag and the bondage of the wrists, and so on, and since no one was present and saw Paul doing this, I think in the absence of any clear cut information on how he died, I record an open verdict rather than one of accidental death.

Paul Wardle had been unemployed at the time and the youngest of four children.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see Liverpool Echo - Monday 09 June 1986

see Liverpool Echo - Thursday 01 March 1984

see Liverpool Daily Post - Monday 14 November 1983

see Liverpool Echo - Friday 06 May 1983

see Liverpool Echo - Thursday 05 May 1983