A High Wycombe man was found dead in his flat by a friend after an evening drinking and was more than five times over the drink-drive limit, an inquest has heard.

Polish-born Tomasz Lyszczarz, 52, who was living in a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) in West Wycombe Road, was found slumped on the floor by a friend he had been drinking with the night before on December 6 last year.

He had died of acute alcohol toxicity, with post-mortem toxicology tests revealing he had 464mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

The legal drink-drive limit is 80mg over 100ml of blood.

At an inquest into Mr Lyszczarz’s death on Wednesday, March 24, pathologist Dr Peter Johnson explained how there were no other drugs in his system and that he had likely died because of the “significant” amount of alcohol he had consumed.

The inquest heard how Mr Lyszczarz, a known alcoholic, had been drinking on December 5 with friend Jarek Michalek, who lived in the flat below.

He last saw Mr Lyszczarz alive at around 9pm when he went back up to his own flat.

He said: “We had been drinking with friends in my flat. He left my flat and went back upstairs, he was drunk but okay. It was the last time I heard from him.

“I tried calling him, I went to check on him. He never locked the door to his flat. I knocked and then opened the door. At first I thought he had gone out but then I saw his legs on the floor. I shook him on the shoulder.

“I went back downstairs and a friend called the ambulance. He was well but drunk when I last saw him. He had back problems and took tramadol. His parents live in Poland and he has a daughter in the US.”

Paramedics arrived but were unable to save him and Mr Lyszczarz was declared dead.

In a statement from Wycombe Homeless Connection, they said Mr Lyszczarz came to them for support in September 2019 and was homeless, spoke little English, had no identification or a national insurance number.

It is not clear how long he had been in the country as he had given conflicting information to staff.

The charity said Mr Lyszczarz had been put in the Buckingham Hotel in November 2019 when he was taken off the streets as part of the severe weather emergency protocol, and when their winter night shelter opened, he would stay there.

They said, however, that he would often be “three to five times” over the drink-drive limit on their breathalyser test and on those occasions, he was not allowed to stay.

He would visit the shelter until Covid-19 closed it, and then he was placed in accommodation in West Wycombe Road with regular food parcels.

It was Wycombe Homeless Connection that organised and funded his funeral.

Nick Graham, assistant coroner for Buckinghamshire, ruled that Mr Lyszczarz had died an alcohol-related death.

He offered his condolences to his family in Poland who could not attend the inquest.