Wigan student's body was found at a Welsh beauty spot, inquest hears

The body of a student from Wigan was at the foot of a world-famous aqueduct in North Wales, an inquest heard.
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At a brief opening hearing in Ruthin, John Gittins, senior coroner for North Wales East and Central, said that on September 14 two youngsters crossing the 200ft high Pontcysyllte Aqueduct near Llangollen found a sports bottle and then spotted a man’s body on the riverbank below.

They alerted a passer-by who called the police, and officers identified Matthew Lavin from his driving licence.

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The 23-year-old from Winstanley, was certified as dead at the scene and the provisional cause of death given by pathologist Dr Mohammad Mehdi following a post-mortem examination was multiple injuries. The inquest was adjourned to a date to be fixed.

The aqueduct, built by Thomas Telford between 1795 and 1805 to carry the Ellesmere canal, is the longest in Britain and the highest in the world.

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