A former soldier who had fought in Iraq died from an accidental overdose of methadone, an inquest concluded.

Simon Wilcock, 24, died at the home of twin drug addicts in Hillside Road, Low Bentham, on January 5, the inquest in Skipton heard on Thursday.

Mr Wilcock, who had been discharged from the army in May 2010 for cocaine use, had been released from prison just a week before for possessing an offensive weapon.

His mother, Beverley Wilcock, described her son as a fun loving young man who had lived for the army and whose life had fallen apart after he had left.

But she said he had come out of prison with a positive outlook and would never have considered suicide.

The inquest heard how he had spent two days at the house in Hillside Road where John and Anthony Toth lived along with John’s girlfriend, Holly Grayson.

When paramedics were called to the house just before midnight on January 5, Mr Wilcock was already dead. An opened bottle of the heroin substitute, methadone, was lying next to him and there were several other bottles in the house.

A post mortem examination revealed Mr Wilcock had traces of cocaine, cannabis and ecstasy in his blood, but that the main cause of death had been methadone.

John and Anthony Toth both denied seeing Mr Wilcock take methadone, although they agreed he must have got it while staying in their house.

They both admitted to smoking heroin, but denied sharing it with Simon as they had been short due to their dealers being away for Christmas.

The twins were both on prescription methodone. Anthony said: “It is not a nice thing to take, it is a medication at the end of the day. John and I take it out of necessity, it is not something I get a buzz out of.”

His brother added if they had known Simon had taken methadone they would have acted more quickly.

“We don’t associate with smack heads and we’ve never seen anyone overdose,” said John.

He denied they had been negligent in leaving the drug around.

“We had no need to keep the bottles locked up. No one had taken it before.”

Mr Wilcock had talked to them about some blue pills although none of them had seen them on Mr Wilcock.

Mrs Wilcock said her son had been deeply affected by the deaths of fellow soldiers and a badly broken ankle had meant he was unable to join his colleagues in Afghanistan. He had been prescribed antidepressants by the doctor but had wanted to take more than prescribed in the belief they would work more quickly.

Coroner Rob Turnbull described Mr Wilcock as an “over exuberant” young man who had taken methadone because he believed he was going to enjoy it.

He said it was impossible to say exactly when he had taken it but that it was sometime during the day or evening of his death.

He added that the methadone had not been carefully stored, that the twins had accepted they should have been more careful but that they would not have allowed Simon to take it.

“There is no doubt that Simon was not used to it and would not have known how much would have killed him.”