A grieving father used a Bradford inquest to confront the man who left his son to die a needlessly and lonely death.

Sobbing Ray Evans jumped from his seat in the public gallery to stand inches away from homeless Anthony McLoughlin who was with Mr Evans's son Lee when he took an accidental heroin overdose.

The drama happened at a resumed hearing yesterday into the 29-year-old's death in July last year when his body was found headfirst down a derelict mill's chute with £300 stashed in his underwear.

The inquest heard how Mr McLoughlin had abandoned his friend despite seeing him shake and "spin 360 degrees" after injecting himself then fall down the chute at Trident Mills in Vincent Street, Bradford, making noises "like a Zombie."

Shaking with anger, Mr Evans, 54, said to him: "You don't know what I want to do to you right now. Look in her (Lee's mother's) eyes, you tell her why you left her son to die. You left him to die, you don't leave a dog like that."

Mr McLoughlin replied he had not got help sooner because he had been "freaked out" by what happened.

"I couldn't handle it. It was too much. I couldn't handle it," he kept repeating.

Mr Evans said: "If it's too much for you, how do you think we feel?"

Assistant Deputy Coroner Paul Marks had to read out Mr McLoughlin's statement because the witness was in such an agitated and rambling state - he denied taking drugs before the start of the inquest.

Mr Marks said: "I would submit you have taken illicit drugs this morning. You seemed to have trouble walking. You're agitated and are also making rambling statements which I find incomprehensible."

In the statement Mr McLoughlin described how he and Karen Gledhill, who had been injected heroin with Lee, of Colyton Mount, Allerton, had at first tried to get him out of the chute.

He said Miss Gledhill, who claimed in a conflicting statement that Lee was fine the last time she saw him, had left them both after the fall happened but that he had stayed watching Lee for another hour, before going off then returning to have another go at getting him out. When he failed again, he said he left him until the next day returning with another friend Joshua Norman to check on him.

Mr Norman, said in his statement, how he had suggested seeing if Lee was all right and discovered him with his feet sticking out of the floorboards: "I touched his ankle and it was freezing cold."

He said they went straight for help and, after being ignored by passers-by, finally got staff at a nearby carpet shop to call an ambulance - but it was too late.

Mr Marks said he believed Lee would have survived the overdose if help had come sooner and he had been given an antidote.

"Because there was a missed opportunity to save his life, I am recording a verdict of accidental death aggravated by neglect," he said.

Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Hopwood, who investigated Lee's death, said: "However unsatisfactory it might seem, there won't be any criminal charges."

The inquest heard how tragic Lee, who was known to police and had been a client at the city's Ripple Project getting help to kick his habit, had started taking stimulant drugs when he was 13 because he could not get excited about things.

He had a long history of self-harming, suicidal tendencies, alcohol and drug abuse and had also served four years in jail for kidnapping.

At the time of his death he had been in a stormy relationship with a woman who went on to discover she was pregnant with his child the day before his funeral.