A man with no friends or family was found dead in the Manchester Ship Canal... we may never know what happened

Mystery surrounds the death of a man found in the Manchester Ship Canal. Alvin Joseph was pulled from a stretch of the canal in Salford in earlier this year.

A number of questions surrounding the death of the 44-year-old, who had no known friends or family, remain unanswered after a coroner concluded he was unable to say how he ended up in the water. The grim discovery was made on Saturday, May 18.

The canal towpath was cordoned off as Mr Joseph's body was pulled from the water by emergency services. He was declared dead at the scene. He was later identified.

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Mr Joseph was born in Sri Lanka and was originally called Joseph Llwyn Jaganathan, before changing his name to Alvin Joseph after moving to the UK, an inquest into his death was told.

He lived at Cannon Hussey Court, a tower block at Islington Wharf, off Chapel Street in Salford, less than a mile away from where his body was discovered.

Despite a public appeal for information, police were unable to locate his next of kin. Officers were told he had a sister in India but were unable to make contact, Detective Sergeant Andrew Langlands told the hearing.

They also spoke to someone described as a friend, but they said they 'hadn't seen him for a long time'. Mr Joseph was last seen on CCTV in the lift area of his apartment block on May 13, after he used his fob to enter the building. It is not know when he left.

Attempts to further trace his movements by CCTV proved unsuccessful.. The inquest was told Mr Joseph had a number of underlying health conditions including angina, primary biliary cirrhosis and type two diabetes.

Officers theorised he may have 'taken himself to the Manchester Ship Canal and purposefully entered the water or that an underlying health condition may have caused him to fall in the water, after a medical episode', DS Langlands, said.

A GP record referencing depression was from around seven years earlier and Mr Joseph never received medication. No 'notes of intent' were found on his person or at his flat and he had no drugs or alcohol in his system.

A pathologist said there were no injuries including 'defensive injuries' or 'anything to indicate a possible assault'. It was possible he suffered an 'acute' medical event, with his history of heart problems meaning he was 'at risk', but there was no evidence discovered during a post-mortem.

Dr Alex Lewington said he believed Mr Joseph was breathing when he entered the water. He said he believed he had been in the water for a 'prolonged period' of'hours or days'. He gave the cause of death as drowning.

Following the hearing at Bolton Coroners' Court on Tuesday (November 19), assistant coroner Stephen Teasdale said: "There is a lot of information we are able to ascertain. At some point unknown, he has entered the Manchester Ship Canal.

"There are certain things that can be excluded. I am satisfied there's no third party involvement. I am aware of the medical history and I accep it. It may have made him vulnerable, that should he have gotten into difficulties, he would be less likely to survive that particular event. There's no evidence of an acute event that's caused him to enter the water. How and at what point he entered the water, I cannot say."

Mr Teasdale recorded a narrative conclusion that Mr Joseph 'was found in the Manchester Ship canal close to Modwen Road and was beyond resuscitation', but that 'it was not possible to determine where and in what circumstances he entered the water'.