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Michael Risingham singing with brother Peter |
Guitarist mourning mum found hanged
Inquest told depressed musician had slashed his wrists in earlier attempted suicide
A CORONER this week accepted that a musician struggling to come to terms with the death of his mother committed suicide.
Guitarist Michael Risingham hanged himself at his home in Goswell Road, Clerkenwell, in January – a day before his 49th birthday and just two months after his mother’s death from lung cancer.
At a St Pancras inquest on Tuesday his brother Peter, who used to play gigs with him, said Michael, known as Mik, had a breakdown at his mother’s funeral in November.
He said: “After that it was difficult to communicate. I last saw him on Boxing Day and I phoned him the Sunday before he died. He seemed stressed. I had a long conversation with him. He just seemed strange.”
Reading from doctors’ notes, coroner Dr Andrew Reid said Michael had gone through a positive period just after Christmas, when he said he was looking forward to moving north to live closer to his family, but went downhill in the weeks before his death.
His body was discovered by Islington police after his sister asked them to check on him. She had grown worried after he left an alarming message on her telephone answering machine and she could not get hold of her brother.
A psychiatrist at University College Hospital in Euston said an attempted suicide by Mr Risingham in November last year, when he admitted himself to hospital after slashing his wrists, had “shocked” him.
Dr Chloe Maunsell told the inquest: “He was regretful of what he’d done.”
He had described it as a panic attack and revealed he had suffered attacks for a decade – during which he would throw himself against walls – but they had worsened since the death of his mother. “Objectively, I thought he was depressed,” she said.
Speaking after the opening of the inquest in January, Peter said his brother had lived his early life as a musician to the full but had grown despondent when his dreams of having a hit record were dashed.
Verdict: suicide. |
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