A MAN with ongoing severe depression who said he experienced thoughts of paedophilia was found by his parents hanging at his Southampton home.

An inquest heard how James and Ann Dornan found their son Peter at his flat in Wyndham Court, Commercial Road, after becoming concerned when he failed to show for dinner.

In a statement read during the inquest, his GP, Dr Simon Platt of Hill Lane Surgery said the 46-year-old had long suffered "moderate to severe depression", first recording incidents of self-harm around 1988.

He said Mr Dornan has told him he had been "actively suicidal" and had been "experiencing images of children" being sexually abused.

His mother told the hearing: "We knew he was down but he seemed in no way as bad as he was five years earlier. We might have been able to talk to him. Previously he had always talked to me. We talked for hours about his depression. Had I known I may be able to have helped him."

Assistant coroner for South Hampshire, Simon Burge, recorded a verdict of suicide.

"There were no signs at all from the evidence that Peter Dornan was suffering from physical ill health," he said.

"He had a family, a wife, friends and colleagues. There was just one thing going on in his mind and that was intrusive thoughts. There's absolutely no suggestion that he ever acted out these intrusive thoughts; to cause harm or risk to anyone else. "