A LIFEGUARD at a Blackburn swimming pool who was found hanging from a tree in Witton Park had suffered a nervous breakdown four years earlier.

An inquest heard that Lynne Clarke's mental health problems had returned in the months before her death, leading to some "bizarre" behaviour.

And Coroner Michael Singleton said the apparent improvement in the 30-year-old's mental state in the days before her death was quite common in people who had decided how they were going to escape from their anguish.

"People who take their own life either do so on the spur of the moment in a crisis, or they do so with a degree of pre-planning," said Mr Singleton. "People often present as being very calm and it is believed that is because they have resolved to sort out their problems by bringing about their own demise."

Miss Clarke, of Selbourne Mews, Blackburn, seemed to have recovered from her earlier problems but, in September, resigned from her job at Waves, in Blackburn. Her father, David Clarke, said she became withdrawn from her family and friends. She was seeing her doctor about depression and was admitted to Queens Park Hospital as a voluntary patient.

Shortly after being discharged at her own request, she saw her GP, Dr Matthew Cooper. He told the inquest that Miss Clarke had said she was feeling better and intended looking for a new job after Christmas.

Mr Clarke said he was with her that day and they arranged to meet the following day to buy a new fire for her living room. When Miss Clarke did not keep the appointment they called at her house three times, but she wasn't in. When she hadn't made contact by the following day they forced entry to her home and Mr Clarke discovered a receipt from Focus DIY for a length of rope and, alongside it, a drawing of a noose. They rang the police, but her body had already been discovered.

Mr Clarke told how, in the weeks before her death, his daughter had started returning gifts from family and friends and, on another occasion, dismantled a fence he had put up round her garden and stacked it in the living room.

The coroner recorded a verdict that Miss Clarke killed herself.