A millionaire BBC television presenter accidentally suffocated himself to death in a solo sex game that went horribly wrong.
Kristian Digby, host of BBC1s daytime property show To Buy Or Not To Buy, was found with a plastic bin liner over his head in his east London home, an inquest was told Monday.
The 32-year-old Digby, a homosexual and a dyslexic, also presented Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, and he lived alone in his two-bedroom house. He was apparently starving himself of oxygen deliberately to heighten sexual arousal.
The extremely dangerous practice of auto-erotic asphyxiation is said to increase sexual pleasure, and participants employ masks, ligatures or even plastic bags to achieve the desired effect.
The body was discovered on March 1 this year.
Dr Benjamin Swift who carried out the post-mortem on Kristian, told the Walthamstow Coroners Court that he found no injuries to show tht Mr Digby might have been forcibly hooded with the bin liner.
The BBC presenters body had been found next to a canister of ethyl chloride - a volatile compound with pleasure-enhancing effects similar to amyl nitrate.
Dr Swift said: "Ethyl chloride is a local anaesthetic which can be used as a spray to anaesthetise an area. It has been reported as being inhaled to heighten the effects of pleasure."
However the toxicology tests carried out on Mr Digby gave no indication that the man had been drinking or ingesting any drugs - including the sex aid spray.