Second inquest confirms Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning

Amy Winehouse / Getty

London A second coroner's inquest confirmed Tuesday that Amy Winehouse died of accidental alcohol poisoning when she resumed drinking after a period of abstinence. Coroner Shirley Radcliffe ruled that the 27-year-old soul singer "died as a result of alcohol toxicity" and recorded a verdict of death by misadventure. She said there were no suspicious circumstances.

She said that Winehouse "voluntarily consumed alcohol; a deliberate act that took an unexpected turn and led to her death."

The Grammy-winning singer was found dead at her London home on July 23, 2011.

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The death of Amy Winehouse

Radcliffe said a postmortem had found that Winehouse had a blood alcohol level five times the legal driving limit, and above a level that can prove fatal.

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New Amy Winehouse inquest confirms alcohol poisoning

She said that that much alcohol could affect the central nervous system so much that a patient could "fall asleep and not wake up."

Winehouse's family did not attend the 45-minute inquest, which was held after the original coroner was found to lack the proper qualifications for the job.

The coroner later resigned after her qualifications were questioned. She had been hired by her husband, the senior coroner for inner north London.

The first inquest in 2011 produced an identical verdict.

[IHateTheMedia]

She was an ' effing-ADDICT! Her prob, see ya'!!

[promontorium]

Why in every article about alcohol consumption do reporters feel it necessary to refer to an arbitrary local irrelevant limit for BAC for driving when nobody was driving and it has nothing to do with anything? Are you even referring the British system? Breath test or blood test? Because none of it matters, she wasn't driving she was dying.

[signseeker1717]

The measurement of "legal intoxication" in the UK is actually LOWER than it is in the US, but perhaps BAC is used by US reporters to put a circumstance IN PERSPECTIVE, so their readers can understand how high these alcohol levels actually are when they cause death. If they just said, "there was LOTS of alcohol in her system", it wouldn't be very descriptive or helpful to understanding the situation. Maybe they don't expect readers to be so literal in interpretation.