Keith Leonard Foreman

Keith Leonard Foreman died 19 days after being assaulted.

He had been suffering from primary pulmonary hypertension, which was a terminal illness.

A student punched him to the floor in a MacDonald's restaurant in Walsall and then kicked him in the head, dislodging a face bone. It was noted that his bleeding wouldn't stop because of an anticoagulant drug, Warfarin, that he had been taking for his illness.

Following the assault he was taken to hospital where he was given a blood transfusion and taken off Warfarin and spent a week in hospital after which he was allowed home. However, he was readmitted a few days later and his heart failed and he died.

However, two doctors could not agree over whether his death had been due to the attack.

A file was sent to the director of public prosecutions by the Coroner over his death.

It was heard that a fellow student from York Crescent in Bloxwich had already been convicted of unlawful and malicious assault causing grievous bodily harm by Walsall magistrates and fined £100.

Keith Foreman had been a student and had lived in Walsall Road, Aldridge. He had been a diabetic and had been diagnosed as suffering from primary pulmonary hypertension in 1983.

A doctor at Manor Hospital in Walsall that had treated Keith Foreman since he was 16, whom he described as a 'tough and courageous young man', said:

He noted that his illness was extremely rare and that there was no cure and that patients eventually died from heart failure.

However, he noted that Keith Foreman was extremely fit before the assault.

However, the pathologist that carried out his post mortem examination stated that his death was caused by heart failure due to primary pulmonary hypertension.

He said that he found numerous clots in and around Keith Foreman's lungs, as usual in a patient with the disease, noting that most of them had only formed in the 24 hours prior to his death, and added that he didn't think he could link the assault to his death.

Nothing more is known about the case, or whether the director of public prosecutions took any action.