A man who committed suicide by putting himself in front of a train was “overwhelmed” by relationship and financial difficulties, an inquest has heard.

Alan Hobbs, 37, of Shafto Road, Ipswich, broke up with his wife last year and suffered from personal debts of more than £25,000.

Things got to such a point that on the morning of February 27 he ended his life at Kings Langley railway station, in Hertfordshire.

Three days before he had been released on bail on the basis of aiding and abetting an attempted suicide after a woman in her 20s, who had been his girlfriend at the time, had tried to take her own life on a railway track near the line junction for Haughley, Stowmarket, the day before.

Kevin McCarthy, assistant coroner for Suffolk, read out a statement by Mr Hobbs’ wife, Jennifer, at Ip-City Centre, in Ipswich, yesterday.

It said: “We were separated for three weeks in 2009; he was not happy and did not wish to stay married. We got back together and everything seemed ok; I believed everything was okay and normal. In May/June 2013 it changed and he became down and not interested in the baby which was explained as financial problems.”

Mr McCarthy did make clear that he could only present the reports available to him and that every story “had two sides”.

In the conversation Mr Hobbs had with his wife on the morning of February 27 he said all he had wanted to be was a “good dad”.

The inquest heard that Mr Hobbs, who had run the car body spray company, Smart Repairs, Dents and Scuffs, had lost around £29,000 in shares.

On February 22 this year he was admitted to Ipswich Hospital after an overdose. A psychiatric doctor did not section him under the Mental Health Act because he was not judged to be “mentally ill”.

Mr McCarthy said: “These things are snapshots in time, when the assessment was carried out it probably did not satisfy the requirements for sectioning. I dare say he could have done but it was too late by then.

“I have no doubts this man was overwhelmed by financial difficulty which may also have led to relationship difficulties and the health problem that he had.”

He recorded the cause of death as multiple traumatic injuries and concluded that it had been caused by suicide.