Mystery of how Stoke Newington man drowned in Thames

An inquest this morning into how a Stoke Newington father-to-be drowned in the Thames, left his family none the wiser as to how he ended up there.

Thang Nguyen was found washed up on the riverbank in Richmond on November 10 2010, after going absent without leave from Homerton Hospital secure unit eight days earlier, Poplar Coroner’s Court heard.

The 24-year old Vietnamese man from the George Downing Estate in Cazenove Road had been given �200 by his sister on October 31 to buy a laptop to keep in contact with his pregnant wife who lived in Vietnam.

Mr Nguyen, who was on medication for schizoid affective disorder, was reported to the police as a missing person on November 2, when he should have returned to the mental health ward after his leave.

The coroner said: “In the absence of suspicious circumstances relating to his death, in the absence of evidence, he probably died as a result of misadventure or accident.

“Because the evidence falls short of suicide the only conclusion I can make is he died as a result of drowning in the river Thames - but the circumstances at or in which he went into the river were not determined.