A RETIRED civil servant, who had led a fit and active life, killed himself because he could not face having to go into a nursing home.

Charles Parsons (88), who lived alone in a sheltered flat in Home Sarum House, Wilton Road, Salisbury, took a large number of paracetamol tablets and put a plastic bag over his head. An inquest into his death, held in Salisbury on Friday, heard that he was found dead on the morning of July 7 by his cleaning lady and the house manager.

Marilyn Henry, Mr Parsons' daughter, told assistant Wiltshire coroner Bill Bache that her father had been a scientific officer at Porton Down and an active rambler.

He had lived at Home Sarum House for nearly three years.

She said that, a month before he died, he suffered a mild stroke and went into Harnham Croft Nursing Home for nursing care.

"He felt frustrated, as he had been very independent and a very active man," she said.

"He did not relish the thought of going into a nursing home on a regular basis."

She said her father returned to Home Sarum House and she telephoned him on July 6, telling him she was going into hospital for an operation and would not be able to visit him until the following week.

"The only negative thing he said was that he was feeling sad," she said.

The next morning, cleaner Louise Taylor was unable to make Mr Parsons hear when she called at his flat and she asked house manager Andrew Greenlees to help her.

He used his set of keys to open the flat door and the pair found Mr Parsons slumped in a chair with a bag over his head, foil strips of pills - mostly empty - nearby and two handwritten notes.

WDC Alison Wiles, investigating officer for Wiltshire Police, said the notes were in full view of anyone coming into the room and one gave details of financial donations Mr Parsons wanted made.

The police found no suspicious circumstances - the door had been locked from the inside and there was no sign of a disturbance in the room.

Salisbury District Hospital pathologist Sue Burroughs found the cause of death to be plastic-bag suffocation.

Mr Parsons had taken 20 times the therapeutic dose of paracetamol but this did not directly contribute to his death, said Dr Burroughs.

Mr Bache, recording a verdict that Mr Parsons killed himself, said the stroke had left Mr Parsons with "a vision of the future which alarmed him".

"I am satisfied that he was well aware of what he was doing and that he carried it out with the intention of bringing about his death."