Daniel Gauntlett, who froze to death on the step of an empty boarded-up bungalow, died in possession of a letter from a doctor calling on the authorities to find him accommodation as a person in priority need. Mr Gauntlett, aged 35, was suffering from a collapsed lung and was a heavy drinker, a coroner’s inquest heard.
There was also evidence that suggested Mr Gauntlett, who died during a freezing February night in 2013, had been arrested and evicted by police from a previous building. Witnesses said he had not been squatting in the building in Aylesford, Kent, where he died but had lived in the garden.
Campaigners have claimed that he was in effect a victim of Section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) 2012, which criminalised squatting in residential property. It had been suggested he “died as a result of obeying the law” because police told him not to squat the empty house.
It has been argued that Gauntlett’s human rights may have been breached either because the Government failed to put in place Article 2 European Convention (right to life) protections when it passed Section 144; or because the police or social services had failed to offer sufficient help to him.
However, the deputy coroner for Mid Kent, Kate Thomas, did not bring in a verdict under human rights “Middleton inquest” procedures, simply recording a verdict of “death by natural causes exacerbated by self neglect”. No police witnesses were called to tell the court of any contact they had had with Gauntlett before he died or whether he had indeed been evicted from a squat or warned not to enter the bungalow.
Witness statements
Mr Gauntlett’s father, Donald, told the court the last time he had seen him, his son told him he had been arrested at another house, in London Street, Maidstone, and as a result had lost some of his clothes. His father gave him money to buy new ones. He said his son’s alcohol problems began when his younger brother died in a road traffic accident at the age of 18. Read the rest of this entry
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