A senior lawyer sent emotional texts to his wife shortly before jumping in front of a train while the couple were on a mini-break, an inquest heard.
Andrew Duxbury, 56, chief executive of Aaron & Partners in Chester, had argued with his wife the previous night and sent her the texts shortly before he took his own life. One message read: “I know it’s over — the last two years you have loved and hated me in equal measures. The irony of the ultimate selfish act is not lost on me.”
At the side of the train track police found two framed photographs and a bottle of whisky as well as an iPad, iPhone, digital camera and keys to his Nissan Qashqai. Blood tests for alcohol revealed that the lawyer was double the drink-drive limit.
Mr Duxbury had driven to Blackburn, where he was born, and parked near the house where he had been brought up before killing himself. At a cemetery in the town officers found a note addressed to “mum and dad”.
His wife contacted police after receiving the texts and the case was treated as a high-risk missing person. By the time he was struck by the York to Blackpool train police in Cheshire and Lancashire were desperately searching for him.
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Judith Duxbury told Michael Singleton, the East Lancashire coroner, that she and her husband had gone to Liverpool for a mini-break but over dinner, on December 28 last year, there was a row when she learnt he had been lying to her. It was still “frosty” at breakfast the next day, Mrs Duxbury said, but she presumed that they were going to continue their holiday.
When she returned to their room and discovered that he was gone, she assumed that he had gone sightseeing without her and she spent the day visiting attractions looking for him.
Just after 3pm Mrs Duxbury received a text from her husband saying money would not be a problem for her, the inquest heard.
She said that at first she thought he was being “dramatic” and rang him twice, leaving messages on voicemail saying that if he did not answer she would call police. She said he had never threatened to kill himself.
The cause of death was given as multiple injuries and the coroner recorded a verdict that Mr Duxbury had killed himself.
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