A BIKER died in his sleep after taking a barbecue into his camper van to keep warm.

David Swallow, 29, the son of former Holmfirth High School teacher William Swallow, died tragically in Scotland on June 24.

It is thought that smouldering embers from a barbecue were giving off carbon monoxide fumes after David, 29, had put it in his van.

The funeral of David, who lived in Cheadle, Stockport, will take place this morning at Huddersfield Crematorium at 11.30am.

Mourners are asked to wear informal dress.

David, a Durham University graduate, worked for a housing association in Manchester and leaves a wife Ruth, brother Chris and his father.

David died after he and his father, known as Bill, had travelled to Scotland on June 18 for the Bob McIntyre Memorial Classic bike meeting in East Lothian.

They had tucked into an outdoor meal after a day at the show.

William Swallow, 59, of Lockwood, the chairman of the Huddersfield Falcons Motorcycle Club, said: “It was a cold night and when we came back we felt that, even though it had gone out, the barbecue was still quite warm so we decided to put it in David’s Renault Trafic van.

“We all sat in the back of the van for a bit then I went to my van.

“We didn’t feel queasy at all sitting there and didn’t think anything of the barbecue.”

The next morning when Bill tried to wake his son he saw his teeth were clenched and he was struggling to breathe.

David was rushed to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, where doctors found high levels of carbon monoxide in David's blood.

Staff warned his family then that he was severely brain damaged.

After tests showed he would not be able to breathe independently, he died four days later at about 9pm on June 24.

Bill added: “It’s terrible. The barbecue must still have been giving off fumes for the first hour or so that David was asleep.

“The irony is that David had an old van he only replaced a couple of months ago, which had lots of holes in it.

“The carbon monoxide might have spilled out of it and saved his life.”

Police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death and a report has been sent to the procurator fiscal.

It is the second reported death this year of someone as a result of fumes from a barbecue.

The Examiner told in May how Huddersfield University student, Andrew Price, died in California when his car filled with toxic fumes from a disposable barbecue.

The inquest into the history student’s death was told he had previously used a barbecue to keep warm in a tent, but it had not been a problem before because tents let oxygen in through gaps.

Now another family are mourning a tragic loss with similar circumstances.