POLICE were last night investigating a suspicious death after a man was found dead in a ground floor flat.Officers cordoned off the block of flats in Lucas Road, Sudbury, when the deceased man in his mid 30s was discovered yesterday afternoon after an ambulance crew had been called to the scene.

POLICE were last night investigating a suspicious death after a man was found dead in a ground floor flat.

Officers cordoned off the block of flats in Lucas Road, Sudbury, when the deceased man in his mid 30s was discovered yesterday afternoon after an ambulance crew had been called to the scene.

Suffolk Constabulary, who had not released the name of the victim last night, said a post mortem would be carried out at Ipswich Hospital today to try and establish a cause of death.

It is understood that the man was known to the police, but was not a tenant of the development of 120, mainly one bedroom flats, in the three and four-storey units at Lucas Road. He was a former resident of Long Melford, who had been living in Sudbury in recent times.

The eight flats in the block where he was found are owned and tenanted by the Richmond Fellowship, which nominates people with mental health problems for the premises.

Last night a resident in one of the neighbouring units spoke of seeing a man the previous night sitting, semi-slumped on the bottom of the stairs near the entrance to the flat where the body was found. He believed the man had been taking drugs.

Third floor tenant David Chapman said when he went out at about 6.30pm on Monday the man, who was of a small stature, was sitting on the stairs, and a young woman was near him leaning against a wall.

Mr Chapman said: "When I returned home at about 9.30pm the man was on his own, still on the stairs, and he asked me if I had walked home from the town, and I said I had been given a lift.

"I walked past him up the stairs, and as I did so I could see he had a sheet of tin foil in his hand that had been turned over a few times. I was under the impression he had been smoking heroin, but he did not look distressed, and I continued upstairs."

Mr Chapman added that because he was not at work, he had not been out of his flat yesterday until late afternoon to take out rubbish.

"There were police cars about and an officer told me I would have to use a different waste bin," continued Mr Chapman, who said he had been unaware of a death until spoken to by the EADT last night.

"I suppose if the person who died was the man I saw on the stairs, I could have been the last person to see him alive. I am very sorry to hear about it. I don't know who he was."

Several tenants in the block said they were unaware of what had been happening, although resident Jim Morrish said: "An official of the Richmond Fellowship came round this afternoon and said there would be police about and to give them any help we could."

An ambulance spokesman said they had been called to the flat at about 1.30pm after reports of a possible cardiac arrest.

A Suffolk police spokesman added: "Officers were called to an address in Lucas Road just before 2pm after receiving a call from the ambulance service.

"A man in his mid-30s was found deceased at the premises. Police are currently treating the death as suspicious."