A coroner has issued a warning to people using illegal steroids following the death of a Black Country bodybuilder.

Paul Hartill, of Brooklands, Stourbridge, aged 25, died from liver cancer at the town’s Mary Stevens Hospice on March 15 this year, just six weeks after his 49-year-old father Tony died of a heart attack. Paul, originally from Tipton, had previously admitted using steroids to his doctor after he became ill with liver failure.

The former Alexandra High School pupil had trained at a gym in Great Bridge since he was a teenager, the inquest heard.

Black Country coroner Robin Balmain, sitting at Smethwick Town Hall yesterday, said: “I am concerned that there is a network of steroid taking that may be leading to people’s deaths.

“We have got no evidence of who might have given him the steroids and it is far from certain that they caused his death.

“But there is a warning here. Anyone who is taking drugs other than those prescribed really don’t know what they are going to get.”

Mr Hartill’s mother Katherine said her son’s personality had changed since taking steroids.

“He said he had stopped using them and wouldn’t touch them again because of the effect they had on his body,” she said.

Speaking after the inquest, Mrs Hartill, of Brookfield Way in Tipton, said she was still coming to terms with the loss of her son, a popular young man who worked as a window cleaner.

She echoed calls from the coroner for young people to stay away from drugs.

“There may have been a link between the steroids and cancer but they were unable to prove that,” she said. “Anybody who is thinking about taking steroids or any other illegal drugs should think twice. It is just such a waste of a young life.”

She said the family was planning a memorial fundraiser for December 13 in honour of both Paul and his father Tony, who would have turned 50 in the month. Money raised will be donated to charities Cancer Research and the Heart Foundation, with details to be announced.