Wife Swap contestant died after drink and drugs overdose

10:26am Friday 25th July 2008

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A contestant on Channel 4 show Wife Swap died after a massive brandy and drugs binge when his life spiralled out of control after he appeared on the programme.

Father-of-two Simon Foster, 40, lost his wife, house and job after featuring on the show.

The show, aired on October 14 last year, described Mr Foster and wife Jane as living “an alternative”

lifestyle because both of them had girlfriends on the side.

Brighton Coroner’s Court was told how Mr Foster became “extremely depressed” after losing his wife – who ran off with her lesbian lover – his home and his job as a van driver in the months after the show was screened.

The court heard how Mr Foster drank six times the drink drive limit and took “mammoth” levels of methadone before dying in his bedsit in Whitehawk, Brighton.

Paul Johnson, a friend of Mr Foster’s, found the Wife Swap contestant lying on the floor of his temporary accommodation on April 15.

After filming the show Simon and Jane divorced and sold their home in Brighton, with Jane moving to Derbyshire with the couple’s two children.

Friends of Mr Foster said after his death that his life had been “turned upside down by the show”.

One said in April: “To be shown with your wife happily seeing another woman made him a laughing stock."

After filming last year, Mrs Foster told how it had disturbed the couple’s family life, saying: “The TV company have an image of you they want to portray and goad you into behaving how they want you to behave. “ Mrs Foster attended the inquest but did not give evidence and no link was made at the hearing between their marriage breakdown and the programme.

Brighton and Hove Coroner Veronica Hamilton-Deeley heard that Mr Foster had been staying in a guest room in a sheltered accommodation block. He was sharing the room with his friend Paul Johnson who dialled 999 when he found Mr Foster collapsed after they had spent the day drinking heavily.

In a 999 transcript read to the court, Mr Johnson told an emergency operator that he had given Mr Foster some of his methadone supply before they both fell asleep.

Detective Sergeant Helen Campbell said Mr Foster died after willingly taking methadone given to him by Mr Johnson.

The Crown Prosecution Service advised her Mr Johnson should be charged with supplying Mr Foster with a controlled drug, DS Campbell told the inquest. Recording a verdict of accidental overdose, the coroner said she was satisfied Mr Foster had not deliberately intended to take his own life through overdosing.

She said: “It’s very clear to me that Mr Foster found himself homeless, jobless and that having a somewhat dependent personality, started on a course of abusing alcohol and other drugs.”

He had tried to get his life back on track to some extent by referring himself to a local substance misuse team.