Pubdate: Tue, 07 Mar 2000
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2000 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  PO Box 496, London E1 9XN, United Kingdom
Fax: +44-(0)171-782 5046
Website: http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Author: Andrew Drummond in Bangkok and Elizabeth Judge

BROTHER OF PEER DIES IN HEROIN OVERDOSE

THE younger brother of a viscount has died of a heroin overdose in a hotel
in Burma.

Hugh FitzRoy Newdegate, 37, was found unconscious in his room at the
Traders hotel in Rangoon on Friday.

Mr Newdegate, who lived in London and was single, was on business with the
aviation insurer Aon Group Ltd. He was educated at Eton and was the younger
brother of James Newdegate, 39, who became the fourth Viscount Daventry
last month, when their father, Francis, died after a long illness.

Doctors who performed a post-mortem examination at Rangoon General Hospital
and examined equipment found in his room found he had died of a drugs
overdose, according to local newspaper reports. Police also found a bag
containing 0.02g of heroin in a telephone desk drawer.

Mr Newdegate had arrived in Rangoon from Bangkok last Wednesday and was
last seen by hotel staff the next evening.When he failed to answer an
overseas phone call on Friday, hotel staff opened his door and found him
unconscious. He was pronounced dead by the hotel doctor.

A spokesman at the family's ancestral seat in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, said:
"This has come as an awful shock to everyone and there is utter disbelief
it could have happened."
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