Mystery surrounds the death of a drug addict who was found in the street with a fractured skull.
Fabio Fanfarillo, 43, was discovered in a street in Leicester's West End in July and died in hospital a few days later.
An inquest into his death was held at Leicester Town Hall on Thursday.
The court heard Mr Fanfarillo was with a friend, David Farrow, on the night of July 24 last year. The pair were trying to buy drugs at the home of Clint Caines.
There was an argument, during which Mr Caines pushed Mr Fanfarillo over.
Three days later, he was dead.
The inquest heard Mr Farrow died after taking drugs a few months after Mr Fanfarillo's death, having given very little information to the police.
Mr Caines, the only remaining witness to the events, admitted to coroner Donald Coutts-Wood that he had pushed Mr Fanfarillo over.
However, his description of the incident did not tally with post-mortem examination results.
Mr Caines said Mr Fanfarillo fell on the pavement outside his home in Lavender Road, in the West End. However, pathologist Stuart Hamilton told the inquest the fatal injury happened about two feet away, with Mr Fanfarillo falling against a broken section of wall where blood was found.
He said Mr Fanfarillo had alcohol, heroin and methadone in his system at the time of the incident.
Mr Caines said Mr Fanfarillo had been acting in a "volatile" way before he pushed him over.
He said: "He knocked on my window and I went to the front door. Fabio and David Farrow were there. I didn't know them at that time.
"They wanted to know if they could get some drugs and I said 'There's no drugs here'.
"Fabio just walked off and David Farrow started apologising for knocking on the door and for Fabio's abusive language.
"Fabio spun round and was like, 'Don't apologise for me'.
"He was volatile and started walking and staggering and coming in my direction. His arms were waving.
"He got an arm's distance away and he swung at me. I moved out the way and palmed him off. It was a natural reaction – I pushed him.
"He fell on his bum and went back. I said 'go away' and went inside and made a cup of tea."
A few minutes later, Mr Caines went outside and found Mr Fanfarillo on the ground. He died at Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham on July 27.
Mr Coutts-Wood recorded an open verdict, stating it was impossible to say whether Mr Caines had caused the injury or whether Mr Fanfarillo had stood up again after being shoved by Mr Caines and then fallen over, smashing his head on the wall.
Mr Coutts-Wood said: "We are very restricted in what we had from Mr Farrow before his demise and we have no-one else who saw what happened in the incident.
"Was Mr Fanfarillo moved? Was he assisted up? Did he fall again? We don't have that evidence."
