In February, Buckingham Palace announced that Lady Gabriella Kingston, a cousin of King Charles III, had lost her husband, 45-year-old financier Thomas Kingston. Nearly 10 months after his death, Lady Gabriella broke her silence with testimony to the Gloucestershire Coroner’s Court on December 3. According to The Telegraph, she told the court she believes the self-inflicted gunshot that caused her husband’s death was “impulsive,” coming on the heels of a medication change.
“It appears to me Tom’s impulsive action was likely provoked by an adverse reaction to the medication he had been taking in the last two weeks of his life,” she said in a witness statement. “The fact that he took his own life at the home of his beloved parents, where no one else would find him, suggests the decision was the result of sudden impulse and anxious thoughts sparked by the sight of the gun in the car boot.”
Further testimony Tuesday included that Gabriella’s husband had been prescribed zopiclone for sleep issues and sertraline for anxiety, but had stopped taking the sertraline shortly before his death and switched to diazepam and citalopram. “I believe anyone taking pills such as these needs to be made more aware of the side effects to prevent any future deaths,” she said. “If this could happen to Tom, this could happen to anyone.”
Thomas’s father, Martin Kingston, also testified to the court on Tuesday, and he described the minutes before and after his son’s death. “It was almost as though a switch had been turned in his mind,” he said. “The decision appears to have been made in a matter of minutes, apparently prompted by the gun he was bringing back to us.”
Lady Gabriella and Thomas Kingston married in a May 2019 ceremony in Windsor’s St. George’s Chapel. At the time of his death, he was employed as a director at Devonport Capital, and the couple had no children. In March, Prince William was one of the 140 mourners who joined Gabriella and her parents, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, for a memorial service honoring Thomas’s life. “Tom was an exceptional man who lit up the lives of all who knew him,” read the palace statement announcing his death. “His death has come as a great shock to the whole family.”
