A YOUNG Gwent man was left dying in the back of a car while his friends socialised, an inquest heard yesterday.

Gwent coroner David Bowen said he was "not impressed" with the behaviour of talented footballer Ryan Conway's friends, who had a "moral duty" to the 23-year-old who had taken a lethal cocktail of alcohol and the drug GHB (Gamma-hydroxybutyrate).

Gwent Police drugs education officer Bernie Collins said after the hearing that although the relaxant drug can be "a killer", it is not illegal.

Mr Conway, who lived in Abertillery and played for Welsh league club Tillery, was found dead in the back of a car after a night out with five friends on September 28 last year. The friends had put the young man in the car to recover when he collapsed after taking GHB.

But they did not make any effort to take him home to his parents or his girlfriend Zoe Stephens or to get help for him as they thought he was simply sleeping, the inquest at Tredegar heard.

The coroner said the friends owed no legal duty of care to Mr Conway, whose baby daughter Chloe was just three-months-old when he died.

But he added: "That is not to say they did not owe him a moral duty of care." The hearing was told Mr Conway and his friends - Chris Parry, Ben Case, Gareth Watts, Lee Upcott and Martin Tetley - drove in Mr Case's car to Blackwood, which was when Mr Conway took the GHB.

Mr Conway collapsed in a pub and his friends put him in the back seat of the car. They checked on him before going on to another pub, then three of the friends went to Cardiff with some girls they had met.

Mr Conway was then left in the car outside Mr Case's home in Nantyglo at around 11.30am. Mr Watts went to another pub in Abertillery while Mr Tetley went to see his girlfriend in Pontypool.

When Mr Case and Mr Parry returned home the next morning, they found Mr Conway dead in the rear footwell of the car.

A post mortem examination showed he died of pulmonary oedema and GHB toxicity. Consultant pathologist Dr Geraint Evans said death could also have been caused by "positional asphyxia", which sometimes occurred in unconscious people.

Mr Bowen said: "I am not greatly impressed by the behaviour of Mr Conway's so-called friends in putting him in the back of the car when he was clearly semi-conscious, and then going off socialising and to their respective homes when his condition was not noticeably improving."

He recorded a verdict of misadventure.