A SOUTHAMPTON man was turned away from mental health services hours before his death, an inquest heard.

Tom Rootham was found by his mother and her sister at his mother's home in Union Road, Northam, after consuming a large number of prescribed drugs and heroin on April 22.

The 33-year-old's bipolar and anxiety disorders were being aggravated by an ongoing investigation into a historic rape allegation against him, an inquest heard.

His mother, Louise Morgan, and his aunt, Margaret Millar, begged health workers on Easter Sunday to have Tom admitted to Antelope House psychiatric unit in Southampton.

But officials refused saying they would be unable to assess him properly because he had taken drugs, his aunt told the hearing.

Marie Finn, manager of the Southampton Community Treatment Team, said health workers would have been unable to force Tom from his home and would have needed a warrant enabling police officers to access his home.

She said that would not have been beneficial given his recent encounters with the police over the alleged rape.

But she did say drug addiction “should not be a barrier to people getting help”.

“It's not just about having staff it's about the work between mental health and drug misuse services,” she said, adding that their services had since been reviewed.

“The critical change of discussions could have been the difference between life and death.”

Mrs Millar, of Snode Hill, Beech, near Alton, said: “My sister was begging for help and Tom was known. Street drugs were the thing that prohibited him from getting help. There was a supported net and, at every opportunity, everyone she seemed to speak to said we cannot do any assessment because he's taking street drugs when we were at absolute crisis.

"For me it's too late for Tom but in light of this episode how do people respond so that the next Tom doesn't become a victim of a set of policies?”

Tom's consultant psychiatrist Dr David Dayson, at the Southern Health Foundation NHS Trust, said the department was overworked and that Tom did not get the support he had recommended.

“It's just almost the norm for people to have a mental disorder plus drug misuse,” he said. “I would have admitted him. I repeatedly advised it. I requested a care coordinator and people were so overloaded with caseloads they couldn't take the case on.”

Senior central Hampshire coroner Grahame Short recorded a drugs related verdict.

He said: "I have no doubt Tom felt his life was spiralling out of control and that he had these alleged offences hanging over him and whether there was truth in those allegations are irrelevant in these circumstances.

“He clearly engaged with Dr Dayson on a regular basis; he didn't have a care coordinator as recommended by Dr Dayson. I think that is perhaps surprising given the circumstances and perhaps now he would do.

“It needed Tom to ask for help and he wasn't asking for help,” he added.

“I do feel that he would have benefitted if he had been detained for his own safety but having said that he needed to be assessed and therefore he needed to volunteer himself or at least communicated in some way.”