Suicide decision 'made on spur of moment'

A GARDENER hanged himself from a tree in a client’s garden on “the spur of the moment”.

David Bailey was found by Leon Pliener in the garden he had tended for many years at South Cave, near Hull, last October.

Mr Pliener was a trustee at Jacobs Homes’ retirement complex on Askew Avenue, in Hull, where Mr Bailey worked virtually full-time since 1990, a job, an inquest was told “he adored”.

However in late 2008, the properties were taken over by the Pickering & Ferens Homes, which cut his hours drastically.

Mr Bailey, who lived in Hessle, near Hull, was not classed as an employee and grew concerned that they “wanted to be rid of him”.

A further blow came the following September when he lost a small contract at Hull-based Smith & Nephew.

Mr Bailey, who was described as a “wonderful, devoted, caring father”, also found a mysterious note stuck under his windscreen wiper reading: “Don’t forget to get your receipts”, and this together with his worries about his job, troubled him.

He started to believe he was being watched and photographed at work and started not to make sense in conversation.

However in a statement his wife Linda said she could not understand why her husband of 40 years would take his own life.

Two days before his death they had a “lovely” day out together and he did not seem anxious or worried. She said: “On the way home I can clearly remember him saying ‘I haven’t got anything on this Friday – we should do this again’.”

She said he was making plans for holidays and talking about getting a camper van and travelling and they weren’t struggling financially.

Returning a verdict that Mr Bailey took his own life, assistant coroner Prof Robert Forrest said there did not seem to be any pre-meditation, but there was “no obvious explanation” why he acted as he did.

He said: “I think he has taken an impulsive action, on the spur of the moment.”