A PENRHYNDEUDRAETH man with schizophrenia killed himself when he overdosed by taking up to a month’s worth of his anti-psychotic medication in the hours before his death.

Dafydd Arthur Parri, of Stryd yr Ysgol, was found to have a concentration of the drug in his urine at more than 20 times the recommended dose.

The 40-year-old was found collapsed at his home by a neighbour on the morning of Sunday, 8 March this year and was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

An inquest at Caernarfon last Wednesday heard how neighbour Jade Evans entered Mr Parri’s home when her husband told her he feared the man next door had fallen.

Pathologist Dr Mark Lord told the inquest that a post mortem had been carried out by his colleague Dr Mared Owen-Casey.

He said that toxicology tests showed that Mr Parri had been taking two types of prescribed medication, the anti-depressant sertraline and the anti-psychotic clozapine.

While the concentration of the sertraline was below the toxic level, Dr Lord said the concentration of the clozapine was 10 times the fatal level and 20 times the therapeutic level.

Clozapine is a tightly-controlled drug that is only used to treat schizophrenia in patients who have failed to respond positively to other more typical anti-psychotic medicines.

Its use is closely monitored and patients are subjected to regular blood tests as it has been known to lower white blood cell counts, causing an aggressive form of leukaemia, in a small number of cases.

Tests are also undertaken to determine the types of doses patients are taking.

When asked by Mr Parri’s father whether a patient with schizophrenia should have been given a potentially fatal quantity of clozapine, Dr Lord said it was “very effective for treating schizophrenia” and that mental health staff at Ysbyty Gwynedd would have been very careful in monitoring its use.

Recording the cause of death as “acute clozapine toxicity,” coroner Dewi Pritchard Jones said he had to take into account the sheer volume of the medication Mr Parri had taken when trying to decide whether or not he intended to end his own life.

Delivering a narrative verdict, he said that the 40-year-old had “died as the result of a drug overdose,” adding: “The deceased did kill himself.”