A PREGNANT mother-of-five told an inquest how her partner of 20 years began to behave strangely and took his own life four days later.

Angela Boland told an inquest that Daniel McAtear, of Glenfield Close, Blackburn, had been a perfectly normal, happy and well respected dad, friend and neighbour before the sudden change in his character.

She said her 43-year-old partner began behaving oddly on a Monday and his behaviour became more and more bizarre during the last week of his life.

"He became really paranoid," said Miss Boland.

"He didn't want to send the children to school because he was frightened they would be harmed.

"He thought people would harm the children to get at him."

Miss Boland said Daniel was very highly regarded by friends and neighbours and there was no question of any threat to the children. As the week went on he developed serious paranoia and she began to urge him to seek help from a doctor.

"I knew it was bad but I didn't know just how bad," said Miss Boland. On Friday June 28 Daniel woke Miss Boland at 6.30am and said the children should not go to school because someone would take them from the playground.

He said this was part of the plan to get at him and that someone had been following him for four days.

"I tried to rationalise with him and straighten him out but he wasn't having any of it," said Miss Boland.

"He said he was going to go to Scotland and if everything was OK he would come back in a week." Later that morning Daniel was found hanging from a tree in Witton Park, Blackburn, by a man out walking his dog.

Recording a verdict that Daniel had killed himself while the balance of his mind was disturbed, coroner Michael Singleton said it was a very, very tragic case.

"Paranoia seems to have struck particularly severely and particularly quickly," said Mr Singleton.

The coroner added: "When he left home on that morning I am sure he had no specific plan in mind."

"It is perhaps an indication of his state of mind that as he walked through Witton Park that morning he saw this as being the only way out of the trouble he could see although they were purely illusory."