A YOUNG man from Lancaster stood on a railway track and called to his friend: "come with me," before being hit by an oncoming train an inquest heard this week. A jury at the Coroner's Court recorded a verdict of suicide in the case of 23-year-old Daniel Craven on Friday. Daniel's mother Pamela, of Clare Avenue, Lancaster, cried out "no" when the verdict was announced. Earlier, giving testimony, she had described how her son had hugged her before he went out with his friend, Jason Rider, and was not in too low spirits. But she did confirm that Daniel was upset at the death of his father two and a half years previously and had recently split up with his girlfriend.

Mr Rider said that, although Daniel had been drinking, he didn't seem too depressed at the start of their evening but continued to drink quite a lot of alcohol as the night progressed, although "he wasn't too drunk."

He also remembered chatting to Daniel on the track near Torrisholme Road railway bridge. Said Mr Rider: "All he said was 'come with me,' you wouldn't expect a good friend to say that but I just said 'get off the track'...I didn't get up and get closer to him because the train was getting pretty close. I closed my eyes and when I looked up there was nobody there."

In a written statement read at the inquest Lancaster ambulance crew paramedic Stephen Thornton said he had been called out to Daniel's house several weeks earlier after the 23-year-old had taken seven anti-depressant tablets in a previous suicide bid.

While dealing with his patient Mr Thornton recalled: "He told me he had sat on a railway track but no train had come." He later added that he had been called to a see a body at the railway track weeks later in April before continuing: "The police officer pointed out the body. There were no signs of life. Then I realised it was the same person I had spoken to back in March."

AN inquest jury recorded a majority verdict of 'misadventure' in the case of Robert Hughes, 24, who died in a Lancaster police cell last boxing day.

Mr Hughes hanged himself in the cell by pulling out a cord from his tracksuit bottoms (given to him by the police), tying it to a protruding door hinge, and making noose for himself, the inquest heard.

Mr Hughes, from Carlisle, was taken to the cells after causing a nuisance at the home of his ex-girlfriend, Patricia Davies of Ryelands Road, Lancaster. He was about two and a half times over the alcohol limit for driving.

Since then police cells at Lancaster police have nearly all been changed so their is no protruding hinge on the inside of the rooms.

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