A heartbroken man who told his former girlfriend by text that he was going to kill himself,was found dead in a park.

Nicky Wallace’s body was discovered in Bowling Park, Bradford, last September by a father who had taken a group of children out to play.

It was one of the children who had first spotted Mr Wallace, thinking he was sleeping by a tree.

Waqas Mohammed told a Bradford inquest yesterday in a statement read out at Court it was only when he looked closer that he suspected the man had hung himself.

To shield the youngsters, who were aged six to just one-years-old, he told them to get behind a bush and stay there. He called 999 for help but he could see Mr Wallace was not breathing.

The inquest also heard from Mr Wallace’s former girlfriend Carly Mitchell, who said Mr Wallace had threatened to kill himself in the past and she had always told his mum.

However on the final occasion he texted her, she had not believed he would carry out the threat and did not contact his family.

Mr Wallace who lived at Merchants Court in Bowling, suffered from depression and used cannabis. At the time he died he had not been using the drug, but had been drinking.

In a statement read to the inquest Miss Mitchell said she and Mr Wallace had been sweethearts from the age of 14 and had gone on to live with each other, including for a time in Spain.

They returned to the UK in the Autumn of 2009 and had been trying to have a baby.

After finally getting pregnant, Miss Mitchell miscarried.

She told the inquest she had found that difficult to deal with, and although Mr Wallace had also been upset, she said he had not understood how she felt.

There were rows and she had needed some time by herself, she said.

“He wanted me to come back as before but I told him I needed more time,” she said.

Miss Mitchell said Mr Wallace, who she described as a deep thinker, had said a couple of times before he was going to kill himself but she had told his mum and it had been sorted out.

However, in the last text to her just before his death he had given her two minutes to phone him.

She had phoned him back and said he had seemed “quite calm” adding “I never thought he would go through with it at that time of the day and in the open.”

It was later that day she was told he had taken his own life.

Coroner Roger Whittaker said Mr Wallace had “intended to take his own life and all too sadly was successful.”