Rocker Nick Cave’s son took LSD before accidentally falling to his death, coroner says

Rocker Nick Cave’s son Arthur took LSD with a friend before falling from a 60-foot cliff onto an underpass in Brighton, England, in July, a coroner’s inquest has revealed.

The musician and his wife, Susie, hugged after a hearing Tuesday in which coroner Veronica Hamilton-Deeley ruled the 15-year-old’s death accidental, the Associated Press reported. Evidence showed multiple brain injuries as the cause of death.

Arthur and a friend who was not named had decided together to try the hallucinogen for the first time and shared three tablets, Detective Constable Vicky Loft testified, according to the Guardian.

“Arthur was also slightly hesitant but said to [his friend] that if they were thinking or worrying [about] bad things before taking the tablets that would have an effect on their trip,” said Loft, who read a statement from the friend. “They debated for a few minutes about whether to take the tablets then both took them together.”

The friend said in the statement read by Loft that after an initial “good and happy” period after taking the acid, he began to hallucinate vividly, then he and Arthur became separated.

“I saw a young man walking and staggering, almost zigzagging, along the grass ... ,” a woman who’d been driving slowly past the clifftop location testified, the Daily Mail reported. “My initial reaction was drink or drugs.”

She saw in her rear-view mirror that he had gone over a fence, the Mirror reported, but couldn’t find him after she parked and got out to look for the teen.

“He wasn’t pushed and I didn’t see him fall over,” the woman testified, according to the Mail. “It was dramatically quick.” A man who was looking with her then saw a body on the roadway below, the Mail said.

Nick and Susie Cave left the inquiry while graphic details of their son’s injuries were discussed, the Associated Press said. Medical witnesses did, however, tell the parents that their boy most likely hadn’t suffered, the Guardian said.

According to the Guardian, the coroner said in wrapping up that the LSD “was taken by lads who were inquiring and experimenting and it’s what kids do all the time, and most of the time … they get away with it, except on sad occasions like this.”

“Arthur was a wonderfully unruly, creative and free-spirited young man with an infectious, happy, funny daredevil nature,” the Caves said after the inquest in a statement obtained by the BBC. “He loved his friends and family, idolised his twin brother Earl and was never far from his side.”

The family was “overwhelmed” by messages of support, the statement said.

Nick Cave has been frontman for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds since the ‘80s, and founded Grinderman in 2006. He moved to Britain from Australia in 1980.

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.

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