A seventeen year old boy spoke excitedly to his parents about catching his first ever 20lb carp, just hours before he died on the bankside.

James Farrow, 17, caught the personal best 22lb carp from Snetterton Lakes near Attleborough, Norfolk on at 5pm Saturday and called his family on his mobile phone to tell them, before settling in for another night’s fishing. The fish had achieved James’ lifelong angling ambition.

But the story was to turn to tragedy. The next morning his father went to look for him when he didn’t answer his phone. He found James, a diabetic, lying at the edge of the water. Paramedics failed to revive him and he was pronounced dead at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

An inquest in Norwich on Wednesday was told that James died from drowning after falling into the lake because he developed hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) as a result of his diabetes. The inquest was adjourned to a date to be fixed.

A devastated Diane Farrow, his mother, said: “James was a passionate angler who spent every weekend at the lakes. On Saturday he achieved his ambition by catching a 22lb carp. He had never been so elated.”