Sex experiment killed man

David Baron, 58, was found dead wearing women's clothes and hooked up to a machine pumping out nitrous oxide.

His wife Carol found him wearing a skirt and bra on the floor of his dressing room at the family home in Kings Stanley, Gloucestershire.

The inquest heard Mr Baron had experimented with medical gas before, but his wife said it was just to relax himself.

She told the inquest that on two occasions she had brought him round after he had slipped into unconsciousness while using gas.

The couple had been going through divorce proceedings and were sleeping in separate rooms, so it was not until Mr Baron failed to get up in the morning that his body was discovered in September last year.

The machine Mr Baron used to deliver the gas to a mask he wore was designed for dental anaesthesia.

But the Gloucester inquest heard it was faulty and was delivering only nitrous oxide rather than a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen.

The cause of death was given as hypoxia and asphyxia due to the inhalation of nitrous oxide.

Cheltenham and Cotswolds Coroner Alan Crickmore recorded a verdict of accidental death.

"I think on this occasion David Baron was fulfilling his erotic fantasies," he said.

"That is clear from pictures found surrounding him and the way he was dressed. The link cannot be denied.

"I think this was a sexual experiment which went very badly, and unintentionally, wrong."