A CHINEHAM man hanged himself from a footbridge just weeks after splitting up from his wife, an inquest heard.

The body of Thomas Drury, 34, was found hanging from a footbridge over the A33 near the Binfields Roundabout on February 19.

PC Katie McGloin, who was on duty in a marked police car in the early hours of February 19, spotted Mr Drury’s body as she drove down the A33 from Basingstoke to Reading at 1.44am.

Mr Drury’s widow, Amanda Drury, told coroner Andrew Bradley that the couple had been married for nearly five years and had a “stormy relationship”, particularly in the last three years. She said there had been “a lot of unfortunate violence in the relationship”.

The inquest, at Alton Magistrates’ Court, heard Mrs Drury had left their home, in Stockbridge Road, Chineham, on New Year’s Eve. She told Mr Bradley: “He did not take it very well, although he did not want me to stay.”

Mr Bradley said that from what he had learned of unemployed Mr Drury, who attended the prestigious public school Milton Abbey School, in Dorset, he appeared to live in a “fantasy land”.

The North East Hampshire coroner also heard that Mr Drury had threatened to hang himself in the past and had self-harmed.

Recording a verdict of suicide, and describing Mr Drury’s behaviour as “self-destructive”, Mr Bradley told the family: “All I can say is how sorry I am.”

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