Family who had to investigate their 19-year-old autistic son's cause of death themselves blast inquest system
The family of an autistic teenager who died from an accidental overdose say they had to investigate the death themselves to find the truth of how he died.
Will Melbourne, 19, was found dead at his Cheshire home on December 18, 2020 after he mistakenly had taken a strong synthetic opioid 100 times stronger than morphine he bought on the dark web.
The inquest into Will's death took three years to come back and his family say had to investigate the matter themselves to find out what happened.
Sally and John Melbourne said their lives were put on hold during the long wait for the inquest to be completed and the family were told at the pre-inquest hearing that the court were short-staff and had a backlog of 500 cases.
Parents and friends of the teenager used a trail of digital "breadcrumbs" to uncover that Will had tried to buy oxycodone, a highly addictive opioid that helps with pain relief and anxiety, which turned out to be a synthetic opioid.
The blue pills Will had bought on the darknet were found beside his body.
The family say the drugs were not tested until they raised it with the coroner's court a year after his death.
Will's blood sample had also been destroyed after the company storing it went into administration.
The family said they were left traumatised by the time the inquest was concluded.
Mrs Melbourne said: "We thought the inquest system was there to give us answers. Instead, we felt blocked at every turn.
"It was outrageous that we had to take the investigation on ourselves."
Source: Mail Online, 4 January 2023