Islington News: Francis Cottrill | Mount Pleasant | Suicide | Inquest

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Islington Tribune - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 10 October 2008

Electrician discovered dead in bath after plea for suicide pact

AN unemployed electrician who tried to talk his partner into a suicide pact at their Clerkenwell home took his life in spite of her refusal, an inquest heard this week.
Divorced Francis Cottrill, 55, hung himself from a cord at his Mount Pleasant home in July after an argument with his partner, Aurora Erguiza.
Giving evidence at a St Pancras inquest on Tuesday, Ms Erguiza said: “He said: ‘We have to die together’.” Of his later suicide, she said: “I never thought he would do that to me.”
She gave an emotional account of how, after Mr Cottrill asked her to commit suicide with him, she left their flat and went to seek help from his friends. But, when she returned to the flat with a friend it was too late.
After breaking down the bathroom door, they found Mr Cottrill lying in the bath with a blue cord around his neck, having apparently hung himself from a fixture in the room.
A medical report, read out by coroner Dr Andrew Reid, revealed that around a year before Mr Cottrill’s death he had been assessed and was not seen as a danger to himself.
The report, following a referral by his GP Dr Kim Ruddy at Amwell Practice, read: “He wasn’t considered to have an active mental health problem or be depressed.”
Dr Reid recorded a verdict of suicide. “This was a voluntary and deliberate act,” he said.
Ms Erguiza, speaking outside the court, said of her partner: “I loved him.”

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