A barman checking toilets after last orders at a city-centre pub found a man hanging.

Despite desperate efforts of Wetherspoon staff, 59-year-old Leslaw Maciejewski could not be saved.

It was believed Mr Maciejewski had been dead for some time before he was found at the pub in Morley Street, Bradford, just after midnight on June 23 last year. Barman Andrew Dacre told today’s inquest how he had first thought someone had fallen asleep drunk in the end cubicle.

He tried to push open the door but it had been locked, so he looked over the top of the neighbouring cubicle, and saw Mr Maciejewski hanging. He and another member of staff kicked the door down and cut him free, checking for a pulse.

The inquest was told Mr Macijewski had come from Poland to find work and had sought help from the Edmund Street Day Shelter. He had an “intermittent drink problem.”

He had met a woman, Julie Ann Kearns, and the couple had been planning to get engaged.

Mr Macijewski had found work in the catering department at Bradford Royal Infirmary for ten months before being out of work for a year. Mrs Kearns said that had got him down.

She also said he had not seen his sons in Poland for some time, and that one of them had lost his legs in an accident.

Mr Maciejewski himself had been admitted to hospital earlier last year after collapsing suddenly.

Mrs Kearns said his death had come as a shock even though he had previously told her he was going to kill himself and had held a large knife to his stomach.

Mrs Kearns told Coroner Roger Whittaker: “Leslaw did not have a drink problem while I knew him. He always seemed a happy man who wanted to help people.”

Mr Whittaker said he was satisfied Mr Maciejewski had taken his own life. A toxicology test had showed he had not been drinking alcohol on the night he died.