Brit dad, 26, jumped to death from Majorca hotel balcony after row with partner

Richard Pike was said to be ‘very drunk’, having consumed 20 bottles of beer as well as alcohol shots prior to the tragic incident.

A British tourist leapt to his death from his seventh-floor hotel balcony on the first night of his holiday after getting into a row with his girlfriend.

Richard Pike, 26, had drunk 20 bottles of beer and ten to 15 alcohol shots over an 18-hour period after leaving Bristol airport at 6am until midnight when he leapt over the balcony railings.

An inquest at Exeter’s County Hall heard from his girlfriend, Abigail Russell, who was with him in their hotel room in Majorca when the incident happened in July last year.

She said the father-of-three was ‘really excited about the holiday’.

She said he was ‘very drunk’ at the end of the night after watching an England football match on TV and eating and lying by the pool at the hotel in Porto Cristo.

She said they began ‘bickering about something silly’ and he walked out of the hotel and she went to their room.

She said he sent her a text message at 11.45pm saying if she wasn’t in their room ‘I am going over the balcony’.

He did return to the room and they bickered again and Abigail went into the bathroom and scaffolder Richard ran past her.

She said:”I saw him running straight past me to the balcony, the doors were open and he did not try to stop. He grabbed the top of the railings and jumped his legs over, causing him to fall.”

He fell onto a car parked below the hotel and suffered severe multiple injuries and never regained consciousness.

She said:”What happened was a complete shock. It was a minor argument, only a few words were spoken.

“He was very drunk. He had drunk 20 bottles of beer and 10 to 15 alcoholic shots.”

He suffered with stress and emotional instability and could act impulsively, the inquest heard.

Family and friends set up a Go Fund Me page before Richard died, raising over £6,500 to help towards costs of flying him back to the UK by air ambulance.

He was flown from a Palma hospital to one in Plymouth before being transferred to his home in Exeter, Devon, where he died on August 25th from a traumatic brain injury.

Later that day, around 1,000 Exeter City supporters held a minute’s applause in memory of Richard, who was a big fan of the football club.

The senior Devon coroner Philip Spinney said: “Richard Pike died as a consequence of his own actions.”

His narrative conclusion said that Richard jumped over the railings of his seventh-floor hotel balcony while on holiday in Majorca but added ‘his intentions in doing so are unclear’.

Written by BayRadio