AN e-learning specialist who had battled with depression since being made redundant from a north-west college was found hanged by his wife after a night out.

Scott Anderton had been on medication for the condition since he was sacked by Hopwood Hall College as their e-learning manager, Burnley Coroner’s Court was told.

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The 37-year-old, who also had a young family, had become ‘irritable’ and was prone to aggressive out-bursts, an inquest heard, as he struggled with his ‘work-life’ balance.

He became a self-employed learning consultant, after being forced out at the college, and was also an e-learning advisor for a Lancaster University.

His wife Kelly said that he had spoken on a number of occasions about ending his own life, even raising the matter when they were out with friends.

“There was a point where everything got on top of him from work and he was really angry, to the point where I wanted to go,” she said.

But just before his death he appeared to have been calmer, the inquest heard, and had carried out various DIY and gardening jobs around their home.

The court heard that on April 19 he had been out with friends for a night in Manchester, to a restaurant, and his wife said he appeared to be ‘relatively normal’.

He returned to their home in Red Lees Avenue, Cliviger, and the couple had an argument around 2am, with the husband going off to sleep elsewhere.

She went downstairs the following morning and found her husband hanging. Kelly ran to her mother’s nearby, and an ambulance was called, but Scott was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.

His father Alan Anderton said that he had worked hard to establish his department at Hopwood Hall, but had lost his job when the college made a number of staff redundant.

Recording a narrative verdict, East Lancashire Coroner Richard Taylor, said: “He took his own life while suffering from a depressive illness.”

Earlier Mr Taylor said: “It is impossible to say what was going through his mind at the time.”