THE death of the Vale of Lune rugby team's popular and talented player Jason Bamber, 27, was a recorded as a suicide at a Lancaster inquest this week.

Jason Bamber, a farmer, shot a bullet through his own head on Christmas Eve.

He was discovered by farm worker and friend, Peter Hamilton, early on Christmas day morning with his gun to his chest.

Speaking after the inquest, Vale president Stuart Vernon, paid a warm tribute to Jason.

He remembered: "I got to know him when he made it to the first team. He was in and out and sometimes on the subs' bench and sometimes played for the A side. That never stopped him from showing up even though he had to travel a long way and always gave his utmost. He was that kind of a man. I remember he was happy-go-lucky and very popular with supporters and everyone involved with the club."

During the inquest Jason's mother and father and his friends were all at a complete loss to explain why he had committed suicide. The inquest heard that the young man had a wide circle of friends, an active social life and participated in a number of sports.

His father, James Bamber, also a farmer, explained that his son was a successful local farmer, had no financial worries or other problems that he was aware of. In a statement read out at the inquest he said: "I can give no assumption as to why this happened. Jason was a much loved son." Mr Bamber and Jason's mother held hands in the inquest as they heard the details surrounding their son's death.

The last people it's known Jason saw were Clair Swale and one of his friends, Jason Thompson, who gave him a lift home to his home on Butt Hill Farm at Claughton. She told the inquest: "It was a fairly uneventful trip home. We stopped for a time because Jason wanted to walk but we carried on. He wasn't his normal self, he was slightly off-hand, a bit stroppy, but that was all. He wanted to go back to the pub at one point but that's all we can say."

Investigating police officer DS Martyn Leveridge explained how police found Jason's four wheel drive car crashed into a ditch just outside the farm and the tractor moved a few yards. He offered the theory that Jason was upset that he had crashed the car and had considered retrieving it with the tractor. He also mentioned that an officer had written down a phone number after calling 1471 on Jason's phone but that number cannot be traced. Pathologist Edmund Tapp explained Jason had drunk the equivalent of about ten pints of beer on the night.

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