A HOLIDAY celebration with a friend led to death for a Haslingden man, an inquest was told yesterday.

Sean Breslin, 37, of Laburnum Street, was found dead in the bathroom of his hotel room in the Turkish holiday resort of Marmaris on September 15.

The inquest, at Burnley magistrates court, was told that Sean had gone to the resort with his daughter, Kirk Hutchinson, Mr Hutchinson's brother and Kirk's daughter.

Kirk, of Rising Bridge Road, Haslingden, told the inquest that he had been drinking with Sean in the bar of the Gran Platon Hotel on the first night of their holiday.

The two friends had dinner with their daughters, who went to bed at 9pm. He said they stayed up and drank between five and eight glasses of lager and between three and four rakis -- a Turkish spirit.

Mr Hutchinson said: "We stayed up late having a drink. He came up to the room with me, but went a bit funny in the bar.

"He seemed different and had to be helped to the lift. When we got to the room he went to the bathroom and I got on to my bed and fell asleep.

"I woke in the night when it was still dark and heard snoring." He added there were no lights on in the hotel room and he fell back asleep.

He told the inquest he woke again in the morning and it was light. He got up to go to the bathroom and saw Sean lying in the doorway.

"I saw him on the floor and thought he was asleep. I touched his head and it didn't seem right. He had been in a really good mood and relaxed. I don't understand how he could have died."

He said he then woke their daughters, asked them to leave the room, told his brother and the Turkish authorities were called.

A post mortem examination was carried out on September 24, nine days after his death. Dr Salmon, a pathologist at Burnley General Hospital, said samples taken from the body had been difficult to analyse because of the long gap between death and the examination.

The body had also been embalmed, which he said also had a bearing on the results.

But by consulting with the Turkish authorities, he concluded Sean was three times the legal drink-drive limit.

Dr Salmon added: "I looked for evidence of head injuries, but could not find any. The heart was heavier than normal and the lungs were congested.

"The amount of alcohol in his body can lead to the aspiration of fluids in the stomach and hypertension. That hypertension and the aspiration of stomach fluids led to death."

Recording a verdict of accidental death, acting East Lancashire coroner Richard Taylor, said: "This was the start of what should have been a happy time -- a holiday abroad.

"He went out that night and was in good spirits. He was happy and he celebrated with a number of drinks. The tragedy is that taking that amount of alcohol on board led to a problem which caused his death."