A 16-YEAR-OLD Evesham boy who has not attended school for two years, died as a result of a drug overdose a week before Christmas.

Jamer Tustin was found in a bedsit in Greenhill, Evesham on December 18 last year.

At an inquest into his death at Stourbridge County Court on Monday Worcestershire coroner Victor Round said a cleaner discovered the teenager on his bed with vomit on his face.

Mr Round said: "According to the pathologist's report he died of bronchial pneumonia due to an overdose of heroin or morphine."

The inquest heard that Jamer was a regular user of ecstasy and cannabis.

In a statement to the coroner his brother Daryl, who was one of the last people to see him alive, said: "Jamer would take anything he could get his hands on."

Mr Round said Jamer's parents had separated some time ago, and he lived alternatively with his mother Christina and his father Robin, now deceased, until a family-argument last October at his mother's home.

A few weeks later he was found semi-conscious next to a busy main road in Badsey having overdosed on drugs.

At the time he had been referred to Turning Point, was seeing his doctor on a weekly basis and taking anti-depressant and sleeping tablets.

After his collapse Social Services placed him on the Child Protection Register, and found him a bedsit in Greenhill Evesham, where he was eventually found dead.

In a statement to police, his mother Christina Craze (now remarried) said it was while living with his father that Jamer began to abuse prescription drugs, however officers were unable to obtain firm evidence of his supplier of heroin.

Just a few days before his death Jamer was out with his brother Daryl and friend Dean Wilson. In a statement to the coroner the two said they went to Worcester on Thursday, December 14, where Jamer cashed a Giro cheque.

They returned to a flat in Evesham and Jamer fell asleep. When he woke at about 8.30pm he had what looked like an asthma attack. The two decided that Jamer should return to his flat after he began to stagger.

By Monday after not hearing from him they became worried and tried to contact him. It was then they were told that Jamer was dead.

Coroner Mr Round said: "This is a social problem which would not normally be associated with a town like Evesham but where it undoubtedly exists.

"It is particular sickening to find somebody as young as 16 years dying of a drugs overdose with whom various agencies were struggling to help."

He said as there was no firm evidence that Jamer regularly took heroin or morphine, he would record a verdict of death due to the non-dependant abuse of drugs.