A FATHER who took a fatal overdose in a state of anger did not intend to kill himself, a coroner has ruled.

Kenneth Whish, 41, of Springfield Road, St Albans, had a disagreement with his wife Emma the previous evening, during which he had threatened to commit suicide if she left the house the next day.

She didn’t think her husband was being serious and dropped her child off at school in the morning, but when she returned home she found Mr Whish lying dead in his bed with a number of empty pill packets around him.

He had taken an overdose of clozapine, a medication he had been on for a number of years to keep long-standing mental health problems under control.

But it proved impossible to determine how many tablets he had taken as various factors could have affected the levels of the drug in Mr Whish’s blood, including the fact that he was a smoker.

Mrs Whish told the inquest that her husband, who had various other medical problems including type two diabetes, suffered from mood swings and had been upset and insecure about her attempts to eat a healthier diet, which she was encouraging him to do with her.

Herts coroner Edward Thomas said he did not believe after hearing the evidence that Mr Whish intended to kill himself and recorded a verdict of accidental death

He said: “I don’t think he really, really wanted to die. He was cross, he was insecure and it clouded his judgement. I’m also not sure how many tablets he had taken.”