SUICIDE FOLLOWED ATTACK ON GIRLFRIEND
A Crewe man, who was described as happy and easy-going, hanged himself after attacking his girlfriend an inquest heard.Andrew Horton, 34, of Richard Street, had been preparing to go on holiday when police found him dead under the stairs of his home on February 28.
Mr Horton's girlfriend, Linda Bailey, who, with her daughter Hayley, had lived with him for ten months, told the inquest their relationship had recently deteriorated.
"On the Tuesday (February 26) we had a row after he started drinking at about 11 in the morning.
Later that day, he put some money on a chair arm and told me to go out and have a good night - because I was annoyed with him not talking to me, I did." Miss Bailey said when she returned home at about midnight, Mr Horton started hitting her because she went out, so her daughter called the police.
The following day, Mr Horton tried to contact Miss Bailey several times to talk about what had happened but she was too frightened to go back to the house.
"We were looking for somewhere else to live, so Hayley and her boyfriend went to the house to get our things but she found a partly opened envelope addressed to someone she had never heard of on the front door," said Miss Bailey.
She read that it said not to let her or her boyfriend in but the back door was open, so suspecting something was wrong, she called the police.
PC Lloyd arrived and entered the house at the back door and found Mr Horton's body near the living room.
Cheshire Coroner, Nicholas Rheinberg, said: "I am quite satisfied that there was nobody else involved and can only think it was a bout of remorse or madness that led to Andrew Horton taking his own life."
