A criminology student was found hanged at his flat after a row with his girlfriend, an inquest heard.

Father-of-two Daniel Curwen, who had previously served in the Territorial Army for four years, was found by flatmate Tyler Johnson at their home on St Edmund Street in Great Harwood.

Blackburn Coroners Court heard how 30-year-old Mr Curwen died from hanging and a post-mortem examination showed he had more than four times the legal driving limit of alcohol in his system.

Coroner Michael Singleton recorded a verdict of suicide.

The inquest heard how Mr Curwen, who was studying criminology and criminal justice at criminal justice at Blackburn College, began a relationship with fellow student Abigail West in October last year. Ms West told the inquest how on Saturday, December 19, Mr Curwen wanted her to go out for a drink but she didn’t want to and told him it would be easier to ‘slow things down’.

She said they spoke by phone and Facebook and that Mr Curwen ‘wanted a reason why I was saying what I was saying’.

The inquest heard how the next day Ms West spoke and he seemed ‘all right’ but he then put the phone down and rang back several times. When Mr Curwen later asked her at 9.30pm if she could ring him she said she was ‘going to bed’. The inquest heard how the last message sent to Ms West from Mr Curwen was at 3am on Monday, December 21 which said ‘You will never see me again’.

Ms West told the inquest how she didn’t receive the message until 7am and went round to his house.

She said: “I just thought he would be upstairs asleep, probably hung over. I thought we would’ve sorted it out and we would have been all right again.”

Tyler told the inquest how Daniel had been angry on the Saturday night and on Sunday saw him come back to the flat ‘drunk’. He said he found Mr Curwen dead in the kitchen when he got up to go to work. Daniel Ashworth, who lived in the flat downstairs, said in a statement that Daniel had been with him and his brother on the Sunday drinking and playing cards but kept ‘popping in and out’ to use his laptop.

He said Mr Curwen was ‘cheerful, laughing and joking’ and ‘never expected him to take his own life’. He said: “I’m extremely shocked to hear what’s happened to my friend. I can’t believe what he’s done.”