PEER'S BROTHER IS FOUND DEAD OF HEROIN OVERDOSE

THE brother of Viscount Daventry has died of a heroin overdose during a
business trip to Burma less than three weeks after his father's death.

Staff at the five-star Traders Hotel in Rangoon found Hugh FitzRoy
Newdegate, 37, dead in bed after he failed to answer several overseas phone
calls. Mr Newdegate, an executive director in the aviation division of the
insurance broker Aon Group, had travelled to Burma last Wednesday after a
few days in Bangkok.

The official New Light of Myanmar daily newspaper reported that the body
was found at 10.45am on Friday, less than 48 hours after his arrival from
Thailand. Doctors and forensic experts said after a post-mortem examination
at the city's general hospital that the cause of death was not in doubt.

A small packet containing about 0.02 grams (0.0007 oz) of heroin had been
found in a drawer of the telephone desk next to his bed, and police also
recovered other "objects" indicating heroin had been used.

Mr Newdegate's brother, James, 39, became the 4th Viscount Daventry last
month on the death of their father at the age of 78. Friends of the family
stressed that there was no suggestion that the deaths of father and son in
successive months were other than a "tragic coincidence".

James Perks, land agent at Arbury Hall, at Nuneaton, Warwicks, the seat of
the Newdegate family for 400 years and birthplace of the novelist George
Eliot, said: "The family is utterly devastated at reports of his accidental
death."

Educated at Eton College, Mr Newdegate was unmarried and had made at least
two previous visits to Burma. An Aon Group spokesman said: "We are all
devastated by this distressing news. We have been advised of nothing to
suggest that this is anything other than a tragic accident."

A British embassy official in Rangoon said: "I can confirm he was found
unconscious in his hotel room and was later pronounced dead. The family has
been informed." The Foreign Office said: "He had not been seen since noon
on Thursday. The Burmese police are conducting an investigation."

Mr Newdegate's body is expected to be flown back to Britain later this
week.

Burma is the second highest producer of heroin, after Afghanistan, with
thousands of acres of poppies in the notorious Golden Triangle region
bordering Laos and Thailand. The drug is fairly easily available in the
capital.

By Western standards, heroin is cheap in Burma, costing as little as UKP2 a
gram, or a few pence for a single dose.