RETIRED police officer Laurence Harrison, from Bearsted, killed himself after suffering years of depression and illness, an inquest was told.

The 75-year-old, of Yeoman Lane, hanged himself from a bridge over the River Len, near Spot Lane, in Madginford, after dark on January 15.

At the inquest into Mr Harrison's death, held in Maidstone last Friday, Stephen Beck, assistant deputy coroner for Mid Kent and Medway, heard that Mr Harrison had retired from Yorkshire Police in 1971 after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

After suffering a collapsed lung while on holiday in Ibiza a year later, the Parkinson's was re-diagnosed as a benign tumour.

Depressed

He came to Kent with his wife in 1982 but found the move stressful and had a nervous breakdown. He was later diagnosed with diabetes, had his prostate removed because of cancer and had his gall bladder removed.

Mr Beck also read testimony from Dr Martin Moss, Mr Harrison's GP, who said that his patient had become more depressed at the beginning of this year when he lost his voluntary job as a driver for the Heathside clinic in Coxheath.

Dr Moss said Mr Harrison had attempted to hang himself a year earlier in his shed.

Recording a verdict of suicide, Mr Beck said: "The evidence is that he suffered from depression and he had previously suggested by his actions a wish to hang himself.

"The circumstances he was found in lead me to only one conclusion, that it was his intention to take his own life."