A PATHOLOGIST has concluded that a man whose body was discovered in a York council flat died of natural causes.

The Evening Press reported yesterday how police had launched an investigation after a care assistant found the body of a middle-aged man in a ground-floor flat in Glen Close, Fulford, on Monday night.

The man was named today as Brian Cunningham, 59. An inquest will open later today or tomorrow.

The flat was sealed off as police forensic teams, wearing protective white suits, searched for clues into the death, which they viewed as "suspicious", even though there were no injuries visible that might suggest violence.

Police now say that, after conducting a post-mortem examination at York Hospital, a Home Office pathologist has decided that the man died of natural causes and that there were no suspicious circumstances.

Updated: 11:19 Wednesday, March 05, 2003