THE FAMILY of a young man who died after taking drugs feared he may have been the victim of foul play following an anonymous tip-off that he had been jabbed in the neck with a syringe.

Christopher Copas went to a friend’s flat and began a three-day binge on the party drug mephedrone and was taking other tablets “like Smarties”.

However, after two nights with no sleep the 31-year-old staggered out of the bathroom and collapsed in front of a shocked Sabrina Sells and her partner Paul Hopkins.

Mr Copas’ mother Julie said the family felt a “degree of uncertainty” about the death after an anonymous caller told police that Mr Copas had been killed when someone jabbed a needle into his neck.

Pathologist Ben Phillips told an inquest in Oxford that Mr Copas of Banbury Road, Moreton Pinkney, had died from multiple drug toxicity after taking large quantities of the synthetic party drug, along with injecting heroin, and smoking crack and cannabis.

When being grilled at the inquest in Oxford by Mr Copas' sister Victoria, the pathologist Ben Phillips said it was impossible to say 100 per cent that a specific drug had killed him, especially as there are no known toxic levels of mephedrone or cocaine.

However on the balance of probability he agreed that the drugs binge had killed the young man and said he had found no evidence there had been fatal anaphylaxis.

Recording a narrative verdict Oxfordshire coroner Darren Salter said: “Alternative causes of death on the evidence are multiple drug toxicity or possible anaphylaxis.

"It’s not possible to say for certain on the evidence which of these alternative two causes resulted in his death."