A FATHER-OF-TWO who overcame breast cancer died after suffering a head injury in his own home.

Anthony White, aged 58, of New Road, Dyfatty was found dead on March 10.

His inquest at Swansea Civic Centre heard he was diabetic with a "history of excess alcohol intake".

Mr White, who formerly worked at the Guildhall and was known to friends as Chalks, Chalkie and Tony, was discovered after his worried girlfriend Teri asked neighbours to check on him.

Consultant pathologist David Thomas said Mr White's postmortem examination revealed he had alcohol in his system to "just over three times the drink-drive limit".

"There was no evidence of any tumour or any stroke."

He said Mr White also had a heavy heart in weight.

The inquest heard that Mr White was a former breast cancer sufferer and had drugs in his system including diazepam and amitriptyline at a "therapeutic range".

"I cannot say how this man came to sustain a head injury," said Dr Thomas.

"It could be a simple trip or fall. He could have had some kind of abnormal heart trigger."

Dr Thomas gave the cause of death as head injury, an enlarged heart and alcohol intoxication.

Coroner Phillip Rogers said that following his cancer Mr White had opted to go on a drug trial where he had been told that side effects could include an enlarged heart.

But Dr Thomas said: "I would also add to this that someone who's dependant on alcohol over a time can also have an enlarged heart." The inquest heard Mr White had two children and his marriage had broken down in the late 1980s.

The last person to see Mr White alive was his neighbour Royston John, who attended his home to help him stop his smoke alarm from sounding the night before his death.

Mr White was found on the floor beneath a broken fire alarm with its detached cover next to him. But Mr John said that alarm had been broken for a number of days and was a different alarm to the one that had been sounding.

There was no evidence at the scene to suggest Mr White had been attempting to fix the broken alarm before his death and the inquest heard it was unlikely he could have reached the alarm without standing on a chair.

Mr Rogers recorded a verdict of accidental death.