GO AD-FREE. Get 2 Months Digital Subscription for ONLY £1! Use code 2FOR1
GET STARTEDMore on KentOnline
GO AD-FREE. Get 2 Months Digital Subscription for ONLY £1! Use code 2FOR1
GET STARTEDMore on KentOnline
The sister of a man killed after being injected with heroin by an addict, has revealed how she solved the crime by filming the woman’s confession.
Dawn Green’s brother Ryan was injected with heroin by drug addict Samantha Loftus at an address in Grove Road, in Strood, in June, last year.
Mr Green, 37, who had a problem with alcohol but was not a drug user say his family, turned blue after he had been given the dose and stopped breathing.
Scroll down for exclusive video
An ambulance was called and he was taken to Medway Maritime Hospital, but he never recovered.
An inquest reached a conclusion of unlawful killing and assistant coroner Ian Wade found Loftus was “unequivocally responsible” for Mr Green’s death.
Police revealed that a charge of manslaughter would have been pursued against her had she not died of an overdose three months later.
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: 'I killed him' - addict's admission from beyond the grave. Ben Kennedy reports
The first his family knew of it was when his mother sent him a text the next morning but got a call back from someone called Jonathan Martin who told her Ryan had collapsed after “taking something”.
Miss Green, 35, said: “This Jon Martin told my mum Ryan had been with them the night before after meeting them earlier.
“This guy said he was looking after Ryan’s phone and he thought he’d suffered a heart attack.”
After making her way to the hospital, Miss Green spoke to doctors and found out her brother was in an induced coma after taking what they thought was heroin.
She added: “I felt shocked.
“I knew instantly he had not done it to himself, he was needle-phobic and would not have injected himself.
“My brother had a problem with alcohol and could be a pain, but I just knew he would not have done that, he didn’t inject heroin.”
She found out the address the ambulance had been sent to and went to the house to find out what had happened. Inside were Loftus and Martin.
“They told me they had met him earlier that day and invited him back to the flat after chatting about his one-eyed dog, that’s something Ryan would do,” Miss Green said.
“She told me she’d injected him in his left arm and that he also took a sleeping tablet, called a Moggy, it is prescribed to drug addicts apparently.”
Loftus said that Mr Green had told the pair he had never had heroin before and she claimed he had asked for the drug.
“The pair then told me he went blue and fell to the floor and they started doing CPR on him,” she added.
“She even said she could have just have thrown him out and there was me thanking her for not doing that.”
The flat was filled with drug paraphernalia and there were even drips of blood on the floor and the drips used on her brother by paramedics were still there.
After asking where her brother’s iPhone was, Loftus and Martin told her they had sold it to their drug dealer for a £20 debt they owed and for some more heroin.
Miss Green added: “I think they (Loftus and Martin) took Ryan back to their flat with the intention of robbing him.
“They must have gone through his pockets as he had two prescriptions on him, one for pain killers and one for antibiotics, they were both missing along with his phone.”
At the time her brother was still alive, though desperately ill. The next day the family got an early-morning call from staff at the hospital and were given the devastating news that Ryan would not pull through.
Miss Green returned to the flat in Grove Road in an attempt to extract a confession from Loftus which she could hand to police.
She took two people with her and recorded the addict telling her she had injected her brother.
“It was so surreal, like it was a dream. I needed her to say it on camera and she did and I just wanted to punch her in the face, but I just had to keep recording,” she added.
She later called the police and an investigation was launched.
Miss Green said: “I told them I had arranged to meet their drug dealer to get Ryan’s iPhone back and I’d agreed to pay £50 for it. The police came with me and he was arrested.
“They found a machete in his BMW, but no drugs and as they couldn’t prove he knew the phone was stolen, he was not charged with that.
The man, a 28-year-old from Chatham, was later charged with possession of a bladed article in a public place.
Loftus and Martin were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and later that evening Mr Green’s life support machine was switched off.
Miss Green said: “We were all there the whole family and some of his friends. The machine was switched off at 9.50pm and he died at 11.07pm, again it was surreal.”
Loftus and Martin were bailed by police and were due at the police station in September, but five days before Loftus died in Maidstone Hospital from a heroin overdose, she was 43.
An inquest will be held next month.
Regarding Mr Green’s inquest, his sister said: “We were overwhelmed with the verdict, it was exactly what we had wanted.
“I was told by the DI in the case she was remorseful and what she had done played on her mind. “
Jonathan Martin, 37, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to stealing the iPhone and was given 60-day suspended jail sentence, with £265 court costs.
Mr Green grew up in Cliffe Woods and was a pupil at the Hundred of Hoo School and was a keen football player in his youth and had aspirations to become a firefighter.
However, he worked as a mechanic and at his mum Julie’s garage in Higham and was very close to his mother, throughout his life.
His son, Vinnie was the apple of his eye and despite separating from his wife, Mr Green spent quality time with his son when he would sleep over at his mum’s house. Miss Green added: “Ryan was very close to our mum, in fact he was a mummy’s boy.
“They were very close and loved nothing more than to walk the dogs together.
“He did his best for Vinnie too despite his alcohol problem and he would sleep over at my mum’s house and they would spend quality time together, he was a good dad.”
More than 400 people attended Mr Green’s funeral at St Helen’s Church in Cliffe last October.
“It was horrible having to wait for him to be buried, the waiting was traumatic and it was a relief we could hold a funeral.
“I am glad last year has now gone and the trauma is over and the truth is out.
“I know my brother could be a pain, but he never deserved to die like that and life is very different without him.
“Our lives will never be the same again and I still sit there and say to people, I can’t believe my brother is dead.
“We loved him, he was a good dad and we miss him every day.”
Fact file:
