A MAN found lying in a massive pool of blood in an Indian restaurant killed himself after finding out his wife had been having an affair.
Mohammed Mustafa Miah was discovered in a corridor of the Asia Restaurant in Lenten Pool, Denbigh, on November 18 last year.
A verdict of suicide was returned by coroner John Gittins at an inquest last week.
The death prompted a police investigation as it was not clear whether the Mr Miah, 47, had been murdered or not.
Dr Brian Rodgers told the inquest in Prestatyn that his throat had been slashed, but what was puzzling was that the knife was found in a bucket several yards away in the kitchen.
“It was a complex scene to interpret,” he said.
“It was not clear initially what had gone on. We didn’t know whether it was murder or a
self-inflicted injury.”
The pathologist said that footprints leading from the body to the kitchen and back again, coupled with slight “tentative” wounds to the neck and the absence of any defensive wounds meant that Mr Miah probably cut his own throat, severing the carotid artery.
That would have caused a massive spurt of blood, reducing his blood pressure, and Mr Miah then walked to the kitchen, put the knife in the bucket and staggered back to the corridor, where he collapsed near a fire exit.
Mr Miah, from Bangladesh, had worked at the restaurant for only four months, having previously worked in Dubai.
But his cousin, Sazu Miah, who runs a restaurant in Norwich, told the inquest that he was very upset to learn that his wife, who lived in London, had been having an affair and had returned to Bangladesh.
Four days before his death he had travelled to London to try to sort out his problems, which he felt too “embarrassed and humiliated” about to discuss in detail with his family or colleagues.
Mr Gittins, Acting Coroner for North Wales Central, said Mr Miah, who lived in a flat above the restaurant, was “clearly a troubled man”.
“He may have felt it to be the honourable way out,” he said.
He added that it was more than merely a cry for help as he had done it at a time when he knew there were no others around and it was a “very significant injury”.