Christopher Harrold was a student at Bristol University (Picture: GETTY)

A student died while performing an extreme solo sex act in his bedroom, an inquest has heard.

The body of Christopher Harrold, 26, was found by his new housemates after failing to emerge from his room for two days.

He died of auto-erotic asphixation – a method of increasing sexual excitement by restricting oxygen flow to the brain by strangulation or suffocation.

Police officers found a laptop and mobile phone near him in his room which were both pointing towards him.


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No further details about the method of his death were given at the inquest at Avon Coroner’s Court in Flax Bourton, Bristol.

But assistant coroner Robert Sowersby said there was ‘nothing to suggest’ Mr Harrold had any intention of hurting himself.

The inquest heard Mr Harrold has just moved into a new house in Redland, Bristol, which he shared with his close friends Alex Neville, Allison Rubenok and Sarah Becca Whittaker.

He had gone home for the weekend on April 22 to spend time with his family and they arrived in Bristol on April 30 to help him move into his new house.

But by the morning of May 2, his friends realised they had not seen him for nearly two days and decided to check his room.

Ms Whittaker knocked on his door, but did not receive a reply. When she opened the door to check, she found Christopher slumped in the corner of his room.

She ran out of the room crying and Ms Rubenock went in to find that he had hanged himself.

In her witness statement, Ms Whittaker said Mr Harrold had been in good spirits and was excited about moving into the new place.

Ms Rubenock had gone to America with him earlier this year for a physics conference. He had told her he had broken up with his girlfriend, Steph, in March.

Although he was upset, he did not seem devastated by the break up, according to Ms Rubenock.

The court heard police officer Shirley Lindsay found a mobile phone and open laptop, both pointing towards the body.

Mr Sowersby said the items found in the bedroom and the circumstances around the death ‘strongly suggested’ auto-erotic asphixation, and he recorded a conclusion of death by misadventure.

In their statement to court, Mr Harrold’s mother, Carmel Dawson, said her son was a ‘smart, hardworking and competitive’ person.

He did well in school, with teachers praising him for both his work and attitude.

Mr Harrold travelled widely, and also loved playing rugby. He would feature regularly for local sides, and ran half marathons.

Last year, he was part of a team at Bristol University which developed an optical chip that can process photons in an infinite number of ways.

It was a major step forward in creating a quantum computer to solve problems such as designing new drugs, superfast database searches, and performing otherwise intractable mathematics, not possible for super computers.