A HOMELESS man who was found dead in a public toilet last year died as a result of "failures" and "poor decision making" from emergency services, a jury has decided.

Eugeniusz Niedziolko, aged 40, was found unresponsive in the toilets at Lush House car park, near Elizabeth Gardens, at about 7.45am on Febuary 14, 2017.

The inquest heard that police and paramedics had been called to attend to Mr Niedziolko hours previously, at about 2am, after he was reported to be drunk in a communal area of a block of flats.

But coroner David Ridley said paramedics had not conducted proper medical assessments before deciding not to take Mr Niedziolko to hospital, and that the police had a number of options available to them to care for the man, but left him in the public toilets to “sober up” overnight.

Over the course of five days, the jury has heard evidence from a number of witnesses who saw Mr Niedziolko on the night of his death, in February last year, as well as experts.

Today, they concluded that Mr Niedziolko, who was Polish, "died as a result of acute alcohol intoxication and hypothermia".

The jury foreman said the death was "contributed to by neglect", including "failure by the police and ambulance services to relay and clarify key information from the control room to front line staff", after it emerged that key 'markers' that Mr Niedziolko had had depression and previously tried to hang himself were not shared with police attending the scene.

The foreman added: "In addition, failure to follow protocol and document findings by the police and ambulance services was compounded by inappropriate training delivery processes with insufficient knowledge of the options available.

"This culminated in poor decision making and a lack of professional judgement by the police, who subsequently left Eugeniusz in the toilet block at Lush House car park rather than being taken to an appropriate place of safety to be monitored and receive appropriate care if necessary”.

Summing up the evidence before dismissing the jury earlier today, Mr Ridley said paramedic Lee Martin, who was called out to assess Mr Niedziolko, had “regarded the issue as a social matter rather than a medical one”, but that a consultant at Salisbury A&E said, had Mr Niedziolko been taken to hospital, “he was not a difficult patient to save”.

He added that Mr Niedziolko would have been put in a chair where someone could “keep an eye on him” and given a cup of tea and a sandwich.

Initial reports into Mr Niedziolko’s death suggested the most likely cause was alcohol poisoning, but experts also said it was “highly likely” he would have experienced a level of hypothermia.

Following his death, Mr Ridley said an agreement dating back to 2009 was “discovered” between Wiltshire Police and South Western Ambulance Service.

Police officers and paramedics said they had never had sight of any such agreement and, despite it being updated after the incident in 2017, they were still not aware of its contents.