Quentin Griffiths, the co-founder of the Asos fashion website, was alone when he died after a fall from an 18-floor apartment complex in Thailand, an inquest has heard.
The 58-year-old was living in Pattaya at the time of his death on 9 February this year.
Dorset Coroner Rachael Griffin told a pre-inquest review that so far she had only received a translated police report, which provided “very brief circumstances” of Mr Griffiths’ death, and a translated post-mortem report.
She told the hearing: “I am limited in this investigation because the evidence suggests that he was the only person in the flat at the time of the events that very sadly took his life and very sadly we know he fell from a height that led to his death, whether that fall was a deliberate fall or an accidental fall.
“At this moment in time, on the basis of the evidence I have, there are a lot of questions waiting to be answered and that might not change.”
Ms Griffin said that she had requested the Foreign and Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to seek any further information from the Thai authorities.
She said: “One of the challenges we face is the level of investigation depends on where the death occurs.
“What we are trying to establish is whether there is anything else we can access to this police investigation.”
She added: “I have to be very careful about the reliability of evidence and I have to take evidence from a reliable source rather than the rumour mill.”
Ms Griffin adjourned the inquest for a further hearing to be held on 25 March next year to provide more time for the FCDO and Mr Griffiths’ family to seek further information about his death.
The coroner expressed her “sincerest and heartfelt condolences” to family members who attended the hearing on a video-link, and added: “I understand his death came as a complete shock.”
The BBC has previously reported that Mr Griffiths fell from an 18-floor complex in Pattaya, a seaside city south of Bangkok, and that police had told them he had been on his own in the apartment with the room locked from the inside – and there was no evidence of a break-in.
And according to reports in The Sun, Mr Griffiths and his ex-wife Ploy Kringsinthanakun were locked in court proceedings, and she accused him of stealing £500,000 worth of shares and land from her company.
She told the newspaper: “I had absolutely nothing to do with his death. How could I kill him? How would I know anything about it? I live in Bangkok — I wasn’t in Pattaya.”
Mr Griffiths co-founded Asos in 2000 as a site for fashion aficionados seeking clothes at discount prices.
In a statement, the company said: “We’re saddened to hear about the passing of Quentin, one of our original co-founders.
“He played an important role in Asos’s earliest days and we’re forever grateful for his contribution.
“Our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
