A FATHER of four died seven years after being badly beaten in a burglary left him with permanent brain damage, an inquest heard.

The coroner delivered a narrative verdict into the death of Laurence Nolan, who died aged 47 in the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in August 2014 after years of suffering with the impact of his attack and brittle diabetes.

Winchester Coroners Court heard just before midnight on 18 February 18, 2007 Laurence opened the door of his Atholl Court flat in Kingsway Gardens to two armed robbers, who hit him over the head several times with a metal bar.

Coroner Grahame Short said: “These injuries left him unable to care for himself, to speak, indeed at all just prior to his death to eat his own food, and he was on a restricted special diet.”

The inquest also heard that Laurence, pictured, was diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic in 1994 and suffered from brittle diabetes – which is a a term used to describe particularly hard to control type 1 diabetes.

Mr Short added: “It appears that although his brain injuries had stabilised, his insulin levels remained difficult to maintain, despite [him being] the fact that he was in hospital.

“And Part of that difficulty was Laurence’s own behaviour which was at least largely to the consequences of the brain injuries and the effects on his frontal lobe.”

He added: “It’s impossible for me to determine precisely which factors were most influential, the brittle diabetes and the effects of the brain injury.

“However, the consequence for Laurence was that he was vulnerable to hypoglycaemia, low blood sugar episodes, which would occur at any time.”

He concluded: “Given that, it is not possible for me to categorise this death as wholly due to natural causes and nor can I say that it was caused by the effects of the traumatic brain injury, resulting from the assault in 2007.”