A father-of-two died during a New Year’s Eve party when he climbed on to a roof and fell off, an inquest heard.

Daniel Dawson fell to his death in the early hours of 2017 when he tumbled off the roof when a party turned violent and he tried escaping by climbing over rooftops.

Daniel, 25, had been “playing poker, drinking alcohol and taking drugs” in Hastings with five friends.

Friend Darren Butler told an inquest they had been enjoying celebrating the new year until about 3.45am when Daniel, who had been speaking to another friend in the kitchen became angry, grabbed a knife and started moving towards him.

Mr Butler told the hearing at Hastings Coroners Court he shut the living room door to prevent Daniel from attacking him or anyone else in the flat but said he kicked the door off its hinges and stormed in. After a brief scuffle, Daniel made his way out on to the roof of the building via a kitchen window.

Mr Butler suggested Daniel may have gone on to the roof to avoid being arrested as one partygoer dialled 999.

Daniel had managed to climb out the window, on to the roof and was three flats down the road before he fell on to a basement flat roof, smashing through a corrugated plastic ceiling and on to the floor of a utility room.

Resident Sameer Atallah was woken at 4.38am by a loud bang. He found Daniel lying on the ground with his “eyes and mouth open” and called an ambulance but Daniel, from St Leonards, could not be saved.

A post mortem found he had 288mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood in his system – more than three-and-a-half times the drink-drive limit.Returning a misadventure verdict, coroner Christopher Wilkinson said: “Considering he had so much alcohol and drugs in his system, it is a miracle he made it as far as he did (along the roof) that evening. There is evidence to suggest Daniel had tried to climb down the drain pipes and I believe he did not intend to die that night.”