On the face of it, the case of Norman Smith is a sad but simple story of a mixed-up teenager who killed himself.

The elderly Wolverhampton coroner, Walter Boyd-Clark Forsyth, certainly thought so.

Barely a month after the body was found in a locked, fume-filled garage in 1973, Mr Forsyth held a brief inquest and recorded a verdict of suicide.

``It was all over in half an hour,'' recalls Norman's brother-in-law, Tony Deans. ``It was as though they had already come to the conclusion. We couldn't believe what was happening. The verdict completely shocked us.''

As well it might. For there was no suicide note and no suggestion that the lad was thinking of taking his life.

Thereis evidence, however, that Norman had suffered violent head injuries.

Strangest of all is the fact that the garage in which his body was found had been locked _ from the outside.

A new and lengthy investigation by the Express & Star suggests that:

Norman did not commit suicide. Another person was involved.

The inquest was ``outrageously skimped''.

His mother's attempt to investigate the case washampered by the coroner's officer.

A subsequent police inquiry into the case failed to interview vital witnesses.

Neither Norman's mother, Mrs Milena Smith, nor any other member of his family was called to give evidence at the inquest.Both she and Mr Deans insist that, although Norman had some problems, he was not suicidal.

Says Mr Deans: ``He was one of those lads who never seems to worry about anything. He just took life as it came.''

Mrs Smith, does not accept the coroner's verdict. For the past 19 years she has conducteda determined and sometimes bizarre campaign to find the truth.

She believes her son was murdered. She claims that Norman had evidence about local drug dealing and was beaten up and his suicide faked to keep him quiet.

Barrie Roberts, aWalsall legal executive, has prepared a detailed 58-page report into Mrs Smith's claims.

He says: ``It is plain that there are still many unanswered questions about the death of Norman Smith. The investigation was at best sloppy. The inquest was skimped in an outrageous manner.''

It is highly unlikely, he says, that a new inquiry would find that Norman committed suicide.

``It seems much more likely that he was the victim of murder or manslaughter.''

So what really happened _ and why?

Mrs Smith says her son had friends who were mixed up in the local drug scene. He had been visited several times by a police constable ``pestering Norman for information''.

Her son knew something which troubled him and was unsure what to do. She advised him to keep quiet unlessthe matter was really serious.

At about 10.40pm on Wednesday, November 14, 1973, Norman left the family home in School Road, Tettenhall, to go out with a friend. The next morning,when he had not returned, Mrs Smith became worried.

She went to his rented garage (since demolished) in nearby Mill Lane. It was locked. She knew it could only be locked from the outside. She assumed Norman could not be inside.

That night, she reported Norman missing. A friend of Norman's, Michael Harris, went to the garage with Norman's brother, Ron. They, too, found the door locked.

Says Ron Smith:``It was an up-and-over door. It couldn't be locked from the inside or locked and then slammed shut. I tried the handle. It was locked.''

At 10am the next morning two local policemen called at the garage, tried the door and went away.

It was not until 1.20pm, after Michael had broken through the roof of the garage, found the body and opened the door, that police returned.

Norman was found lying head-down in his Standard 10 car. A pipe had been attached from the exhaust system and led into the rear window.

Mrs Smith, who saw her son's body at the undertakers says it had severe head injuries which were never explained.

Tony Deans, agrees: ``There were head injuries and his hair was matted with blood.

``I was there when they found his body and I identified it.At the time I just presumed it was gas-poisoning and he had fallen over and cracked his head open.

``But when you think about it, there was nothing he could have cracked his head on.''

Ron Smith who saw the body in the car says: ``There was something fishy about it. There were great chunks of his hair stuck in the dashboard switches and he was lying face-down. It looked to me as though he had been thrown in.''

Mrs Smith's daughter, Tania Deans, recalls ``a sort of indentation in the temple'' of her brother's body.

The funeral director, Mr Roger Jennings, says his 1973 notes make no mention of head injuries but such an omission is not unusual in coroner's cases. Nothing in the post-mortem examination, he believes, would accountfor the injuries described by Mrs Smith.

The pathologist, Dr AG Marshall, concluded from the appearance of the body that the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning.

Yet his report to the inquest gives no blood analysis to support his theory. It seems a curious oversight.

Two forensic scientists approached by the Express &Star described the lack of a routine blood analysis as inexplicable. A third said it was understandable, if the circumstances suggested a simple suicide, but a finding based on observation rather than analysis was ``second best''. Why thisapparent lapse by an experienced and respected pathologist?

One explanation is that Dr Marshall had not been told of the sinister aspects of the case.

Mrs Smith says Dr Marshall began to give details of head injuries to the inquest, but was halted by the 69-year-old coroner.

The only family evidence given was a typed statement in which Mrs Smith allegedly said her son had complained of headaches and had been depressed.

She claims she never dictated this statement andwas browbeaten into signing it by the coroner's officer, Sergeant Stanley Painting.

Mrs Smith says Sgt Painting regarded her as an hysterical woman who could not accept her son's suicide. She says that he bullied her into keeping quiet at the inquest.

It is an extraordinary claim but her daughter, Mrs Deans, says: ``Before the inquest one policeman was very stroppy with her, telling her not to make a fuss and just let things lie. He was very nasty with her.''

Says Tony Deans: ``Every time she tried to express an opinion, he more or less told her to shut up. He was very abrupt.''