A MAN with a morbid fascination with death, who made a model gallows when at school, hanged himself at a time when family and friends thought everything was going well for him.

An inquest heard that David Isherwood Leaver, 35, was a reforming heroin addict who had replaced heroin with prescribed methadone and had cleared his debts.

And while his brother, Peter, revealed David's morbid fascination, he could not offer any reason why his brother had taken his life. Peter said that his brother had started suffering from depression in 1993, about the same time as he started taking heroin, but did not take his medication regularly.

He said getting off heroin was David's long-term aim and in the two months before his death he had seemed a lot better.

"As far as I am aware he had stopped taking heroin and because he wasn't spending his money on drugs he had nearly cleared his debts," said Peter.

He described his brother's interest in death which had first manifested

itself when David was at school. In his art class he would draw coffins and anything to do with death.

"He made a set of gallows with model people hanging on it and I remember a sketch of a man who had just shot another man," said Peter.

"He had a collection of World War II books and videos."

Peter revealed that his brother had tried to kill himself by cutting his wrists and he thought that it was a serious attempt at suicide rather than a cry for help.

And Jacqueline Jackson, who shared a house in Swift Close with David, said that she had to cut the rope from round his neck when he tried to commit suicide two years ago.

Miss Jackson told how she had left the home to visit a friend and when she returned was locked out.

She said there had been nothing wrong when she left.

She went away and did not raise the alarm until two days later.

"I left it for two days which I shouldn't have done," said Miss Jackson.

When police forced entry into the house they found David hanging from a blue cord fixed to a metal hook in the living room ceiling.

Coroner Michael Singleton recorded a verdict of suicide.