When police pulled a headless body from a river, you would not have thought it needed a doctor to confirm the person was dead.
But there are rules and procedures to follow. And a medic was duly called in to declare that the man in question was actually ‘life extinct’.
Yesterday a coroner expressed surprise at why a doctor was summoned.
‘Even though there was no head, and the maggots, you had to call him in?’ Dr Shirley Radcliffe asked Det Insp Chuk Gwams.
The officer replied: ‘Yes Ma’am. They are the experts, we are not.’
The inquest heard that police were called to the River Wandle in Wimbledon, South-West London, last June.
Two Environment Agency contractors clearing Japanese knotweed from the bank had discovered the headless corpse floating in the water.
It was so badly decomposed, it was impossible to establish how the person had died.
And it was only through DNA tests that police identified him as Polish national Waldemar Drobig, 32, a former baker who slept rough and had previously been arrested for petty theft.
Mr Drobig was born in Sunechow, Poland, and was married with one son, although at the time of his death he had lost contact with his family.
'The area he was found in, a ledge under a bridge, in summer time is where the local street drinkers tend to congregate,' Det Insp Gwams said.
Recording an open verdict at Westminster coroner’s court yesterday, Dr Radcliffe said: ‘The cause of death in uncertain.
‘It is not possible to rule out foul play one hundred per cent.’
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