A family GP hanged himself after proposing to two women and planning the weddings just a month apart, an inquest heard.

Dr Festus Ojagbemi, of Kingsdown Close, Hempstead, led a secret double life for seven years - running up credit card debts and unpaid tax worth thousands of pounds.

His long-term partner, Jackie Hammond, told an inquest she had a nervous breakdown after discovering the 49-year-old GP had been seeing another woman, Bamidele Ayeni, since 2005.

Racked with guilt, he stabbed himself twice in the chest in his own surgery, St Mary’s Medical Centre, Strood, during a late-night paperwork session on February 8, this year.

Ms Hammond said: "He just wanted my attention, he just wanted me to notice he was hurting because of what he had done to me."

However, as he recovered in A&E, he lied to police and his two fiancees, saying a stranger had attacked him.

The next day he confessed the truth to officers, who arrested and cautioned him for wasting police time.

Four days later, Ms Hammond returned from work to find him hanged at the detached home they shared.

A note signed with his nickname, Wally, was on the TV cabinet near where he was found in the conservatory.

Only that morning, the couple had talked about booking a photographer for their wedding on May 12.

An inquest heard how the Nigerian-born GP’s secrets unravelled after his death.

Ms Hammond said a credit card firm phoned after he died, claiming he owed them £10,000. She said: "I started phoning and everyone told me how much he owed them.

"By the time we got to the 10th or 11th the bill was… we just couldn't get our heads round it.

"I work, I get paid, so we don't talk about finances. If we go on holiday he would be the one that pays."

Dr Festus Ojagbemi stabbed himself twice in the chest at St Mary’s Medical Centre in Strood

DS Paul Fewtrell tracked down Dr Ojagbemi's other fiancee, Ms Ayeni.

"I would call him baby because he was my baby," she told police. "I would also call him my husband."

She added: "He's intelligent, loving, caring, he buys me lots of things. Why would he do this to himself?"

Ms Ayeni, who did not give evidence, claimed Dr Ojagbemi proposed last October and that they were preparing for a wedding in April.

They had a child, he rented a flat for them, visited on weekends and they would talk six or seven times a day, she said.

She told DS Fewtrell: "Wally told me not to give anyone the news that we were getting married in April because everyone would go on about it."

Ms Ayeni said she knew about the GP's other partner, but he had told her he did not love her any more.

Assistant deputy coroner Gail Elliman, recording a verdict of suicide, said: "I am satisfied Dr Ojagbemi took his own life. I won’t go into any speculation about the reasons for doing so."

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The inquest heard the GP was a well-respected family doctor with no history of depression or self-harm.

He studied at the University of Benin, Nigeria, graduating in 1986 and emigrating to the UK in 1992.

He had a child by Ms Ayeni and two others - not by Ms Hammond - who he had been seeing for almost the entire time he was in Britain.

His practice manager, Jacqueline Wake, told police: "I liked Festus. He was very approachable and a gentleman and we got on well together."

Speaking after the GP's death, his old friend Dr Mustapha Tahir said he had no idea what could have motivated it.

He added: "He was a happy-go-lucky kind of person and a very caring doctor.

"The last time I saw him was when I ran into him at a filling station in Gravesend.

"I wondered why I hadn't seen him. I was under the impression he had a high workload."