A WORCESTER drug user died of a heroin overdose the day after he was released from prison.

Mark Harvey, who had served a sentence for theft, met a friend in Worcester city centre.

Mr Harvey's friend Tom Gormley had offered the 20-year-old, of Checketts Lane, Claines, a place to stay in Warndon's Randwick Drive.

Worcestershire coroner Victor Round said a group of heroin users had met up at the address later the same day, Wednesday, November 27.

One of the drug users, Simon Sliwinski, told police that Mr Harvey was not an addict.

"No one has described him as a drug addict, even Sliwinski, who describes himself as addicted," said Mr Round at the Stourport hearing.

In his statement to police, Mr Sliwinski, a 37-year-old of Randwick Drive, said he had seen Mr Harvey asleep on a sofa that evening.

"He looked out of it, and looked as if he had taken drugs of some kind," said Mr Round reading from Mr Sliwinski's statement.

"He was snoring the next morning when Sliwinski got up and left, at 8am, to sell the Big Issue," said Mr Round.

"He came back at about 2pm and discovered Harvey still lying on the sofa in the same position.

"Sliwinski thought Harvey was still asleep - only when he checked him did he find he was cold. "Mark had come out of prison and gone straight to heroin and had killed himself on it," said Mr Round, referring to a statement by Mr Harvey's adoptive father Andrew McLeod.

"I do not have the evidence to say he was a drug addict," added Mr Round, who recorded a verdict of death through non-dependent drug abuse.