A MAN was found dead in woods in Brockenhurst the day after receiving divorce papers, an inquest heard.

Doctors said James Birse, 35, was vulnerable to depression and struggled to come to terms with the changes following his daughter Zoe’s birth.

On June 18, last year, his wife Marisa Kilburn-Birse, of London, wrote a 24-paragraph email to the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust pleading for a psychiatric assessment due to Mr Birse’s ‘strange and unusual behaviour’.

The inquest heard how he would make suicidal threats or ask his wife to kill him.

He was assessed in July and it was agreed the couple would go to family therapy sessions, however they separated before this happened.

He then moved from London to his mother Madeleine Birse’s house in Parkstone, Poole.

Giving evidence, Mrs Birse said when her son was 15, his elder brother Frank killed himself and Mr Burse regarded him as his last male blood relative, as he did not know his natural father.

Mrs Birse reported the former HR worker missing on April 7, and was informed an hour later that he had been found.

She said she later found the divorce papers in his bedroom.

Assistant coroner for central Hampshire Simon Burge said: “Marisa, you did everything you could. You could not have anticipated or prevented what he was going to do.”

Mr Birse died from an overdose of a prescription drug, a post mortem report by Dr Jeffrey Theaker said. The coroner ruled a verdict of suicide.