A much-loved son and brother was found dead by a dredger crew after going into a river near Workington and being carried out to sea.
During an inquest into the death of 23-year-old Nic Degraff today, a coroner said she was desperately sorry to his family that the mystery of exactly how he first entered the water would never be solved.
Mr Degraff, of Oxford Street, Workington, was reported missing by a friend at around lunchtime on December 12 last year. She raised the alarm after being contacted by some walkers who had found his beloved German Shepherd, Leia, that morning on the banks of the River Derwent at Great Clifton.
The dog was described as being keen to stay at that location. The friend was unable to raise Mr Degraff, who worked as a welder, on the phone and he had not returned home.
It was believed he had been at the Great Clifton home of an acquaintance the previous evening. Mr Degraff was described as being intoxicated though alcohol and/or drugs when he left with a male who was said to be showing him a route home through the village.
At that stage Mr Degraff was with Leia. They were captured on CCTV several times in Great Clifton — first with the male at 5.07am, and then without him at 5.10am past the village hall and at 5.17am heading west along Riverside.
A detective inspector had later stated: “The last two locations recorded on Mr Degraff’s Snapchat are at the same place the dog was found, and there were signs near where the dog was found of a likely entry point into the river.”
A jacket matching one he was wearing was recovered. And, five days later, a rope believed to have been used by him as a dog lead was found snagged on a partially submerged tree branch within 100 metres of the likely entry point.
Family, friends and the emergency services joined forces in a search for Mr Degraff with repeated public appeals made to trace his whereabouts.
But on January 21, a Norwegian crew called police to Workington’s Prince of Wales dock after a decomposed body was found in the hopper of dredger which had been in the Derwent outwash.
The body was wearing distinctive Himalayan boots which were said by Mr Degraff’s family to have matched those he was wearing on the night he went missing.
A pathologist concluded that he died from immersion — which is different to drowning — and that this was possibly due to his intoxicated state. Tests had indicated the use of alcohol, cocaine and diazepam prior to death.
However, area coroner Kirsty Gomersal said the standard of proof she needed was on the balance of probability and not merely possibility.
“That is going to be the greatest mystery of all,” Ms Gomersal told members of Mr Degraff’s family who attended the inquest. “How did Nic come to be in the river?” She concluded: “We can only surmise as to how Nic came to enter into the river. There are simply too many unknowns.”
Police had concluded there were no suspicious circumstances and had not flagged up any concerns after being unable to take statements from people in whose company he had been before he went missing. There was no evidence he intended to harm himself, the coroner ruled.
Recording a narrative verdict, Ms Gomersal stated: “Nic died due to immersion but how he came to enter the river cannot be determined.”
She told his family: “It is perhaps the greatest tragedy of a coroner’s inquest that we can’t answer the most important question of all. I am so very sorry for your loss.”
Alluding to the huge search after Mr Degraff was reported missing, Ms Gomersal added: “I should perhaps take this opportunity to pay tribute to those who searched desperately for Nic.”
