A Welsh software engineer who fell from a hotel balcony while on holiday in Malta may not have been aware he was falling, an inquest has heard. Kieran Thomas Hughes, 25, from Nant Gwynant, Caernarfon, was on a five-night break on the Mediterranean island in July last year when the incident happened.
Night out ends in tragedy
Mr Hughes had been on a night out with friends, consuming beer, cocktails and limoncello before returning to his room at the Cavalieri Art Hotel in the St Julian's area. CCTV showed him and friend Osian Jones returning to their sixth-floor room at about 3.30am. A 48-minute period passed before another camera captured his fall onto Spinola Road outside the hotel in the Triq Spinola district.
A passerby alerted a hotel night shift worker at 4.15am on Friday, July 11. The worker told police: "A person screamed 'Something happened. Somebody fell from the balcony.'" Police found Mr Hughes wearing only boxer shorts on the ground directly below his balcony.
Roommate asleep during incident
Officers entered Room 603 and found Mr Jones asleep. He did not wake up immediately due to his state of intoxication, a magistrates' report found. Mr Jones told Maltese authorities the friends had gone for dinner, to the Dragonara Palace Casino and a nightclub.
Two Maltese pathology experts concluded Mr Hughes sustained multiple injuries from blunt force trauma caused by a fall from height. A physician found no evidence of broken arms, indicating he had not tried to break his fall and so was "not aware" he had been falling. A pharmacist found evidence of "severe alcohol intoxication" in blood and urine tests.
Coroner rules death an accident
Maltese magistrates reported CCTV showed the two men returning to their room making "erratic" movements and "holding on to each other, suggesting they were intoxicated". There was "no visible animosity" between the men nor evidence of third party involvement in the fall.
Elizabeth Dudley-Jones, assistant coroner for north west Wales, found the cause of death was blunt force injuries as a consequence of a fall. She said: "The boys went out for dinner, visited a casino, drank amounts of alcohol and came back to the hotel. It's difficult to say what in fact happened because there's a period when Kieran's friend was fast asleep." She added: "It seems after returning to his room, Kieran, in a state of severe intoxication, for some reason went out onto the balcony, possibly because he felt unwell or in need of fresh air, and has tragically fallen off the balcony leading to the loss of his life."
She concluded the death was an "accident". In a statement read to the inquest, Mr Hughes's father described his son as loving, caring, passionate and hardworking with a great sense of humour. On his loss, he said: "We feel hiraeth and heartache all day, every day."
