THE man behind the wheel of a car involved in a horror crash that killed two girls died from an accidental drug overdose two months later, an inquest heard today.

Scott Thorn died at his late grandmother’s home in Wood End Way, Northolt, on January 19 after paramedics were unable to resuscitate him.

He had taken tramadol - which he had been prescribed as a pain killer after breaking his leg in the crash - and temazepam, which coroner Lorna Tagliavini said was “believed to have been procured over the internet”.

Mr Thorn, 25, had previously been addicted to temazepam, his mother Lorraine Charge told the inquest, after being prescribed it in 2007. That year he suffered an accident that caused him to lose the sight in one eye, leading him to start suffering from depression.

Then in the early hours of November 12 last year a car he was driving was involved in a crash on the A413 in Denham after a night out at the Winkers nightclub in Chalfont St Peter. The car burst into flames and led to the death of friends Casey Robson and Nicole Hitchings-Wooden, both 20 and from Hayes [see link to previous story, below].

Ms Charge told West London Coroner’s Court the crash had affected her son’s confidence and made his depression worse.

The coroner told Ms Charge she had to have in mind the possibility Mr Thorn took his own life, but she replied that suggestion was “ridiculous”.

She said: “He’s too much of a brave man and a courageous man. He had too much to live for and too many good friends who loved and cared for him. He’s not a yellowbelly.”

Ms Charge told the inquest no charges over the crash had been brought against her son, claiming “they had nothing against him”.

Friend Katy Sandim had stayed with Mr Thorn, a domestic appliance engineer, the night before he died. She raised the alarm and another friend, Paul Hughes, gave Mr Thorn CPR after advice from paramedics, before medical staff took over when they arrived at the scene. Despite “intense efforts” paramedics were unable to resuscitate him.

Next to Mr Thorn’s bed was a bottle of temazepam believed to have originally contained 250 tablets. The inquest heard fewer than 100 remained and there was no label on the bottle, which would have given details of the dispensing pharmacy and how many tablets should be taken at a time.

Miss Sandim said she had noticed Mr Thorn taking “large quantities of temazepam tablets”, adding it was a “daily occurrence”.

She said: “I would ask him to stop taking so many and he would tell me to stop moaning at him and to leave him alone.”

The evening before he died Mr Thorn took temazepam “on more than one occasion”, but Miss Sandim said she couldn’t recall how many tablets he had taken as it was such a regular occurrence.

The toxicity levels of the drugs in his body were high but would “not necessarily be fatal”, the coroner said.

Mr Thorn’s mother added: “I do know those tablets weren’t his. They belonged to someone else but I don’t want to say whose they were. I know whose they were.”

Summing up, Ms Tagliavini said she could not be certain Mr Thorn had intended to kill himself: “I’m satisfied he intended to take numerous tablets but I’m not sure he intended the effect to take his own life.”

The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death.