THE precise details of Matthew Symonds’s death will remain a mystery for his family after a jury returned a conclusion of unnatural death at his inquest today.

After two days of evidence and deliberation at Wiltshire and Swindon Coroner’s Service in Salisbury, the nine members were unable to formally pinpoint where, when and why he died.

Almost one year to the day Mr Symonds, 34, was discovered in an Avonmouth waste depot, his family revealed their distress at the uncertainty surrounding his demise.

“The whole family remains shocked and saddened by the sudden death of Matthew in the terrible circumstances that occurred almost a year ago to the day,” their statement said.

“We continue to be distressed about the way it happened, but the conclusion of today's inquest has given us an understanding of the sequence of events leading to his final hours.

“It is unfortunate however, we will never know with any certainty exactly how Matthew died.

“This has been a long, difficult year waiting for these proceedings, which have sadly not given us complete closure.

“We will never forget about you Matthew. You are truly missed, but we know you are at peace up there with your mum.”

The family also drew attention to the future and its hope more will be done to ensure the tragedy which befell Mr Symonds does not happen again in the future.

“We would like some reassurance that more safety checks are completed on all waste bins before they are emptied,” the family said.

“This will ensure that anyone else in the future will avoid the tragedy our family has suffered.”

On Thursday, the jury heard from Timothy Standring, Biffa’s health and safety chief who led an internal inquiry into the incident.

He said there had been 100 instances of people found in its bins during 13 million separate drops in a 12-month period.

Ian Singleton, assistant coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon, with these figures, did not feel the problem was severe enough to make any formal directions for the record.

He noted the work Biffa had already done to make its processes safer, with its introduction of camera recorders to vehicles and a general practise which already goes beyond the Health & Safety Executive’s guidance.

A spokeswoman for Biffa said: “This was a tragic incident. Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family of Matthew Symonds.

“We have long been working hard to address the societal issue of people seeking shelter in waste containers and the potentially fatal consequences.

“We have in place a number of company-wide initiatives, which we are constantly reviewing in an effort to minimise the risk of incidents like this.”

On the first day of the hearing, the jury heard about the events leading up to Mr Symonds’s death and the discovery of his body at the Biffa depot on August 1, 2014.

Today, they heard from the pathologist tasked with carrying out the post-mortem on Mr Symonds’s body and the difficulty he had in reaching any precise conclusions.

Dr Russell Delaney said he was unable to reach any outcomes because the body had been so badly disrupted by the bailing process at Biffa’s depot in Avonmouth.

He said it was most likely the four-metre-plus fall from the bin into the lorry, combined with the proceeding compaction and earlier drug use killed Mr Symonds.

“I’m not able to determine the precise mechanism by which he died,” he said on the second morning of the inquest into Mr Symonds’s death.

“It’s possible that injuries he sustained coming out of the original bin and then compaction within that lorry on a background of drugs led to his death.”

Read more from the inquest and the evidence given by Dr Delaney on our website.