A MAN died when he fell down stairs after a night out, an inquest heard yesterday.

Raymond Oakley, 35, had spent the late afternoon and evening of November 29 last year, drinking and socialising with his girlfriend, Paula Tyler, and friends in various pubs in Stockton.

After returning to their Sun Street home in the town, shortly before midnight, the couple went to bed.

When Miss Tyler heard her boyfriend get up in the middle of the night, she assumed it was to go to the lavatory downstairs, Teesside Coroner's Court heard.

She said: "When he left the bedroom, the next thing I heard was him falling down the stairs.

"He has done that before when he has had a drink and so I assumed he would pick himself up, go to the toilet and then go back to bed.

"When he did not do so, I called to him, and got no response. I got up to go and see what happened and he was at the bottom of the stairs. When I went down the stairs I got no reaction, so I called an ambulance."

Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.

Coroner Michael Sheffield recorded a verdict that Mr Oakley had died as a result of an accident