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EX PM’S NEPHEW KILLED HIMSELF WITH SHOTGUN GCSE success for Wantage youngsters
TEENAGER Ben Goodall had good reason to somersault and backflip all the way home after opening his GCSE envelope to a sweep of A*s last week. The 15-year-old GB gymnast, from Wantage Academy,
was among the thousands of Oxfordshire students collecting their results with baited breath last Thursday. But Ben, a member of the junior boys GB tumbling team, proved he was much more than just gymnastics.
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He joined 16 other classmates who celebrated achieving more than 5A*s at the Portway school. • For the full story and GCSE results from schools across Oxfordshire, see page 5.
AN ARISTOCRATIC racehorse trainer and former Prime Minister’s nephew was “daunted” by the task of writing a new horseracing book when he shot himself raci at h his Oxfordshire home. Th day before he killed himThe self with his own shotgun, James Douglas-Home, 61, declined a bed at a top mental health hospital in London, his inquest heard on Tuesday. The writer-journalist, whose uncle Sir Alec Douglas-Home was Prime Minister in the 1960s, was discovered by sister Sarah Dent at his home in East Lockinge, Wantage, on May 8 this year. GP at The Grove Medical Centre, Andrew Allen, said: “He was worried about a book he was meant to write. “He said it could take a year to research – he was daunted about the task.” He had been suffering from depression for some months and was very anxious, assistant coroner Peter Clark was told at Oxfordshire Coroner’s Court in New Road. Mr Douglas-Home, the 28th Lord Dacre, met with Dr Chris-
By Katriona Ormiston katriona@taylornewspapers.co.uk
topher Muller-Pollard, a psychiatrist at private Nightingale Hospital, the day before he died. He was prescribed Escitalopram– but was warned the medication could make him feel worse before he felt better. A statement by Dr MullerPollard said: “I had reserved a bed so he could be admitted that evening.” It added: “He reassured me he did not need admission because he did not feel suicidal and wanted to go home.” Mr Douglas-Home stayed with his daughter Emily that night before travelling back to his home in Park Lane the next day – where he had lived for about 25 years. His body was discovered by Ms Dent after he failed to pick her up from Didcot Parkway station that evening. Her statement said: “I saw there was a shotgun wound and I knew he was dead. “I knew there was nothing I could do for him.”
Mr Douglas-Home had two licensed shotguns because he would go shooting with his two dogs. His two sisters Dinah Marriott, from Hampshire, and Ms Dent, from Ireland, attended the inquest with family friend Penelope Enthoven. Ms Dent said: “He was very indecisive. He could barely decide when to eat his dinner or what pair of socks to put on. “He had to decide whether to stay in hospital himself or not. “To us it seems surprising that someone of that state of mind who cannot decide whether to eat or not has to make that decision.” Mr Clark gave a cause of death as shotgun wound to the head and verdict of death by suicide. He added: “It was important that the appropriate medical support was provided but sadly this could not prevent the events that occurred.” His wife Christine DouglasHome, who died in 2008, was described as the “right hand woman” to Gold Cup-winning West Lockinge-based trainer Henrietta Knight.
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