A skiing trip led to tragedy for a Cold Norton man when he crashed into a snowdrift and suffocated, an inquest heard.

John Dean, 35, of Latchingdon Road, died while skiing in Meribel les Allues, France in February.

His friend Ian Palfreyman, of Platters Close, Ipswich, told an inquest at Weeley last week that Mr Dean had been among a group of six friends skiing back to the resort during the afternoon when the incident happened.

Mr Palfreyman said: "We were traversing across the edge of the piste. Five of us went down and John waited back to make sure we got down okay.

"Then he came down but he lost control and went past us. He disappeared into a snowdrift falling backwards, head first."

Mr Dean's friends went to help him out of the eight foot snowdrift but despite their efforts to resuscitate him, aided by other skiers and medical staff, they were unable to revive him.

A post mortem examination carried out at Colchester General Hospital revealed no signs of natural disease and Dr Paul Conn concluded the death was caused by "falling into snow".

Coroner Dr Malcolm Weir said: "Basically what that means is he suffocated. This was obviously a tragic accident."

He recorded a verdict of accidental death.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.