A YOUNG entrepreneur who plunged from a Hampshire motorway bridge was high on cannabis, it has been revealed.

Ryan Perks jumped from Moorgreen Road Bridge on to the M27 in the early hours of New Year’s Day, an inquest heard.

He died at the scene from multiple injuries after being struck by several cars. A postmortem examination indicated that he had consumed skunk, a strong form of cannabis.

The inquest was told that Ryan had been at a party near West End and left before midnight, to go to the Southampton Arms on Moorgreen Road, where he was asked to leave by the landlord, Jason Reeves.

Mr Reeves said: “I knew he was stoned by his eyes. I said ‘come on, you’ve got to leave’.

“Then I got him outside. I was walking behind him, he wasn’t resisting, there was never a time where he caused me concern that he was going to cause trouble.

“He put his hands up, said ‘You’re going to be part of this’ and he jumped. I didn’t even have time to see anything, it was one movement and then the traffic hit him.”

Charlotte Currie, from Hamble, was driving her silver Volkswagen when she felt the impact of the body on her car.

Ryan was identified using fingerprints on a mug in his bedroom.

The inquest heard that five other vehicles may have struck Ryan, 25, of Pylands Lane, Bursledon.

Some also collided with each other in the incident, which closed the motorway.

Ryan’s business partner, Jessica Piper, of West End, said she that had known him ten years, describing him as a brother. Miss Piper also confirmed that Mr Perks, a former pupil at Wildern Secondary School and Barton Peveril College in Eastleigh, said he’d had difficulty sleeping.

Central Hampshire area coroner Simon Burge said: “He was supported and cared for, he came from a family environment, he had everything going for him and yet somehow his life ended tragically.

“It does strike me that this is a death that was not intended. It was the drugs that affected his thought process.

“Ryan Perks took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed because he had taken cannabis. He had sustained multiple injuries.”