Nottingham family struggling with closure after wrong body sent back to UK

A shocking error which saw an elderly man mistaken for a Brit who died abroad has left his grieving family with questions that will never be answered. Kevin Nightingale, 39, suddenly died in Cambodia's Takéo province in May this year and his family were left distraught when they were sent the body of a 77-year-old Canadian instead of the English teacher.

By the time Kevin's body eventually arrived in the UK it was so badly decomposed he was "almost unrecognisable", his loved ones previously explained, with Cambodian authorities telling them he'd had a heart attack and fallen down the stairs. This error not only caused distress to his parents and siblings but also meant questions over what caused his sudden death were difficult to answer, coroner Laurinda Bower explained at an inquest into his death at the Council House on Tuesday, November 26.

Miss Bower said: "I am so sorry for what you have been through, clearly somewhere between Cambodia and the airport there had been a mix-up. Someone has made a grave error along the line." The coroner explained to Kevin's parents and brother that she had written to the Foreign Office and Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to express concern over the error and called for foreign officials to investigate, but added she had no jurisdiction outside of England and Wales.

She added: "In places like Cambodia where the logistics are not the same as we expect here, we tend not to get as much evidence through." The coroner explained that one of the only valuable pieces of information she had received was a police report, which contained an account from one of Kevin's colleagues.

This fellow teacher told police that the Englishman had rang his employers to say he was feeling unwell on April 29. He was last seen on April 30, with the concerned staff member later visiting his home and finding his body on May 3.

His family had last seen Kevin, who he had been teaching in South Asia for around 10 years and "absolutely loved it" according to his mum Maureen, back in 2019. When he was finally repatriated, his relatives had worried that a cut near his right eye could have meant something more insidious had happened to him.

However, an in-depth CT scan found no obvious injuries or defensive wounds to suggest he had been attacked, the inquest heard. Miss Bower added that while the doctor carrying out Kevin's post mortem had tried all they could, the examination had been "severely impacted by the length of time between death and the post-mortem".

Although Cambodian officials had put Kevin's death down to heart problems, there was no solid evidence to support this and Miss Bower said examinations suggested he had a "good, working heart" and was generally in fine health. The coroner explained the advanced decomposition of the man's body had stopped further examination of his abdomen - which if intact could have been studied to question why Kevin had been feeling sick before his death.

She added: "We will never know if it was an abdominal issue. There are so many variables here that Kevin could have died from.

"My strong suspicion is that it is natural [causes], but what the natural disease is we cannot say." A toxicology report, which had to be carried out by examining a piece of liver, ruled out the possibility of Kevin being under the influence of drugs, alcohol or poisons at the time of his death.

Miss Bower, who recorded Kevin's cause of death as "ascertained", concluded: "I am taking [the Cambodian cause of death] with a pinch of salt, because let's be frank they misidentified him. We know there is a system out there that does not work well."

The coroner said her office had been able to contact the next-of-kin for the Canadian who had been mistaken for Kevin, and that arrangements had been made to lay him to rest.

The young teacher's parents, Maureen Thompson and Stephen Nightingale, as well as his younger brother Sean, called for the UK's Foreign Office to help them find out who was responsible for the awful failure that destroyed their chances of understanding Kevin's death. Speaking after the inquest, dad Stephen said: "What we need is some sort of accountability, as it's clear that someone hasn't done their job, and we've had to pay for that.

"It is the neglect that we cannot come to terms with. It is something that should have never happened, and because of it we won't get answers."

Mum Maureen explained she could not believe the lack of care shown by those who had been involved in the mishandled repatriation. "It feels like the people that left him there, they have disrespected him and us.

"You'd think when people were dealing with people's loved ones there would be more care for the dead. He did not deserve to be treated like that, and neither did we."

Sean, Kevin's younger brother, added: "I can take a little bit of comfort out of the fact the coroner ruled out him being hurt by someone, or having died from drugs or poison. It just seems like they [those involved with the repatriation] were negligent. I think we have to accept we'll just not get all the answers sadly - but it didn't have to be like this."