A LEIGH mother-of-four killed herself after struggling to cope with depression since the death of her own father.

Pamela King, 40, of Manchester Road, took six-times the amount of anti-depressant tablets needed to kill after drinking four cans of lager.

Mrs King had spent most of her adult life looking after her four children who suffer from Soto's Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder which makes them grow too quickly.

Speaking at the inquest into her death at Leigh Town Hall, husband Bernard King, 44, of Hooten Lane, Leigh, said: "She wanted to be with her father. Pamela wanted peace. She wanted to find comfort."

Her father had died ten years ago but she had never got over losing him, said Mr King.

She had made two previous attempts at suicide.

Her children, aged 14 to 25, are now looked after by Mr King.

Mrs King, who was married aged 16, had been divorced from Bernard for just five months before she took her own life.

The hearing heard that on the day of her death on May 10 this year, Mrs King had telephoned her sister Linda Riley, of Railway Road, Leigh, to say she wanted her life to end.

Mrs Riley said: "She said, 'I want to die'. I had never heard her speak like that before. I said 'have you taken any tablets' and she said 'yes'."

Mr King rushed around to his ex-wife's house and found her collapsed on the sofa. Plates and cups had been smashed in the kitchen.

She was taken to the Royal Bolton Hospital but was pronounced dead after efforts to revive her failed.

An old acquaintance of Mrs King, Barry Spencer, told the inquest that Mrs King had been upset on the day of her death about having just broken up with her new boyfriend and had begun throwing things around in her kitchen.

In a written statement, he said he had not thought she was going to take her own life.

A postmortem showed she had 6,000 microgrammes per litre of an anti-depressant in her blood.

Acting coroner Simon Nelson Mr Nelson recorded a verdict that Mrs King killed herself while the balance of her mind was disturbed.