A NIGHTSHIFT worker set himself on fire after suffering a sudden psychotic episode.

The night before 30-year-old Piotr Karwasz doused himself in petrol on a Bradford football field he told his worried landlady he had been possessed by "little men who lived in the sky".

The hearing in Bradford today was told on August 21 last year the hardworking bakery worker had returned to his lodgings in Hartington Terrace, Lidget Green, acting strangely, stressed, crying and shaking.

He claimed aliens had deleted everything in his head and were going to publish it all on the internet, he had also kept checking his eyes in a mirror telling his landlady the aliens, who he could hear in his head, were going to turn him into a monster.

Assistant Bradford Coroner Dr Dominic Bell heard how Mr Karwasz, who only occasionally smoked cannabis and drank alcohol, had no medical or mental health history.

He worked 16-hour shifts, five days a week and only three days before he died, had called his mother in Poland to say he was coming home soon.

But in the early hours of August 22 last year, two men sat in a car near a football pitch in Lidget Green, saw Mr Karwasz walk towards them, looking wet.

He was carrying an engine oil container and one of the men wound down the window to ask if he was okay and smelled petrol.

Mr Karwasz turned back towards the field and seconds later they saw flames and dialled 999.

Two police officers who were first on the scene tried to use a coat to put out the flames that engulfed him from head to toe, causing 85 per cent of burns to his body.

Despite best efforts by doctors at Pinderfields Burns Unit in Wakefield his injuries were unsurvivable from the outset, said Dr Bell.

He died later that day.

Dr Bell said: "Although it's impossible to state with any certainty what was going on in his mind we have to assume this was an aggressive presentation of a psychotic episode and that Piotr could have been responding to his psychotic beliefs."

He recorded a verdict that Mr Karwasz committed suicide while the balance of his mind was acutely disturbed.

Speaking after the inquest through his partner Jan Hjelde, Mr Karwasz's brother Maciej Karwasz, who had travelled from Poland to be at the hearing, said: "Piotr was a good person. What happened was a big shock to us all.

"He came to the UK to earn money because he did not have a job. He had a girlfriend from family with lots of money but his own situation was not good.

"He comes from a very poor family, he was one of 14 children. I am reassured the British authorities properly investigated his death but I will never be able to accept what happened because he is my brother."