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AN obsessive man who downed two to three litres of cola every day drank himself to death, an inquest heard.

Paul Inman, 30, who had been drinking fluids ­excessively since he was 10 years old, would walk to the shops many times a day to buy his fizzy drinks.

A coroner was told he would pace around so much while thirsty he could go through two pairs of trainers a week.

The huge quantities of cola, water and other drinks caused his lungs to swell to four times their normal weight and he died in his sleep, a coroner heard.

Pathologist Dr Deirdre Mckenna put this down to his excessive drinking, which began because he had Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism.

He was already known to have had low sodium levels because of the volume of fluids he drank.

After hearing Dr Mckenna’s report, his mum Alison Inman told the coroner: “I’m not a pathologist but I made that decision two hours after he died.

“I’ve said all this time the cause of it was he drank excessively, absolutely ­excessively. He had done since he was 10 years old.

“We used to say he had a self-destruct button.”

Paul lived in a flat at Three Sisters Care Home, Haworth, Yorkshire, where he was found dead in his bedroom on March 10 last year.

He was found face down on his bed with his glasses folded by his side by carer Becky Earwaker, who had gone to check on him.

Bradford Coroner Dr Domninic Bell recorded a verdict that Paul had died of natural causes.