UPDATE: Heroin 'played a role' in Peaches Geldof's death

UPDATE: The police have confirmed heroin likely contributed to Peaches Geldof’s death on 7 April.

“Recent use of heroin and the levels identified were likely to have played a role in her death,” police detective Paul Fotheringham told an inquest in Gravesend, England, on Thursday. 

Geldof’s mother, Paula Yates, died of a heroin overdose in 2000.

The inquiry also heard Geldof’s husband, Thomas Cohen, who said he found the 25-year-old slumped across a bed in the spare room of her home in the English countryside.

Cohen, 23, had been visiting his parents in London with the couple’s eldest son, 23-month-old Astala, while Geldof had stayed at home with their 11-month-old son Phaedra. After trying and failing to contact his wife by phone, Cohen travelled back to Kent with his mother and Astala.

Since Geldof’s death, there’s been much speculation about whether drugs were involved or if she died from other health complications. It has been speculated she had tried to quit drugs so she could focus on a settled life with her family but had relapsed. The police are now investigating how she came to be in possession of the heroin.

The television host’s funeral was held at St Mary Magdalene and St Lawrence Church in the Kent village of Davington in Faversham on 21 April.

In a statement following her death, Cohen said: “My beloved wife Peaches was adored by myself and her two sons Astala and Phaedra and I shall bring them up with their mother in their hearts every day.”