Lord’s ex-gardener in drinks tragedy

A FORMER gardener to Lord Heseltine turned to drink when his marriage ended, an Oldham inquest heard yesterday.

As a child, Simon Timothy Evans was a skilled shotgun competitor, and a member of the British Junior moving targets team and also a British shooting champion.

Coroner Simon Nelson recorded a verdict of misadventure and said the amount of alcohol in Mr Evans’s system after his death, at seven times the drink-driving limit, was “probably the highest I have ever come across”.