SOLICITOR'S DEATH

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 9, 10 July 1935, Page 13

SOLICITOR'S DEATH

OVERDOSE OF NARCOTIC

A verdict that Herbert Samuel Port, a solicitor, died from the effect of taking an overdose of a narcotic was returned by-'the Coroner (Mr. E. Gilbertson, J.P.) at the inquest into Port's death, held today. The deceased, who was 32 years of age, died in an ambulance while being taken to the Hobson Street Hospital on the afternoon of June 18.

"There is no possible evidence to show-r that this is <a case of suicide," said the Coroner in returning his verdict. "The deceased was in negotiation for a partnership in a legal firm and had bought a new car—he had no reason to be depressed. I can trace no possible reason for his taking his life. The evidence shows that for some time he suffered from insomnia, and took aspirins for this complaint. Finally he resorted to heroin, which he took hot knowing its potency." Senior-Sergeant J. J. Power conducted the inquest on behalf of the police. John Campbell Port, father of the deceased, said that his son was a single man, and a solicitor in practice in Wellington. On June 17 the deceased went to bed at 11 p.m.. Witness saw his son's car outside the house when he went to town, but it was still there when he returned at 12.15 p.m. He went to his son's bedroom at 12.45 p.m. and found him in bed, breathing heavily and apparently asleep. He could not wake him, and so witness called a nurse who was in the house. She advised him to call in a doctor, who advised the deceased's removal to hospital. His son died in the ambulance on the way. The witness said that his son had complained of a pain in his back, but he did not call in a doctor. He had never given any indication of intending to take his■ life,'and his financial position was sound. For some time his son had been complaining, of sleeplessness and had been taking sleeping drugs—aspros and aspirins—continued the witness. He had never at any time seen him in possession of heroin in any form or similar drugs, and he had never seen anything of that kind in the house. Dr. J. O. Mercer, acting pathologist at the Wellington Public Hospital, who conducted a post-mortem examination of the body of the deceased, expressed the opinion that the cause of death was heroin poisoning. The tablets founjd in the deceased's room were not the usual form in which the drug was made up for medical use. The deceased must have taken at least twelve tablets.

Constable C. H. Riordan gave evidence as to having visited chemists and wholesale drug merchants in Wellington and being unable to trace any sale of heroin tablets to the deceased. He said he did not think the tablets were procured in New Zealand, as they were not listed or handled by drug merchants.