A HAMPSHIRE man who was sent to a secure mental hospital after killing his girlfriend died of a drug overdose, an inquest heard.

Daniel Grant, who had a history of mental illness and drug use, had been sent to Ravenswood House near Fareham after admitting causing the death of Catherine Ogram in 2002.

He was released on condition that he did not take drugs, but was found dead in a flat in Winchester last year after taking heroin.

An inquest in Southampton heard that the 43-year-old was sent to Ravenswood House in 2003 after admitting manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

He had gone to 35-year-old Miss Ogram’s flat in Aldershot on the night of April 11, 2002 after the pair had an argument.

Grant, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had a long history of mental illness going back to his teenage years, then stabbed her to death. Immediately afterwards he went to the police station to confess.

He was discharged from Ravenswood House, near Fareham, in 2009 and eventually moved to Winchester where he lived at the St Georges Lodge supported housing block.

He went many months without turning to drugs, but lapsed in August last year.

On Christmas Eve last year Grant went to a friend’s flat in Andover Road where he was later found by police and pronounced dead by paramedics.

Coroner Grahame Short said that Grant had taken heroin before he died, although the circumstances in which he used the drug were not known.

Recording a verdict that the cause of Grant’s death was drug-related, Mr Short said: “Although the circumstances in which he was found were clearly difficult for the police to investigate, I have no reason to think that it was anyone other than he who chose to inject himself with heroin again.

“It’s particularly sad given the circumstances when he had every prospect of a new life and he could not resist this particular drug, which is known for its addictive properties.”

Grant’s mother, Dolores Grant, told the inquest: “I think it was just a mistake on the spur of the moment and it went wrong.

“He wasn’t used to taking drugs and I think it was just too much.”