Nick Corless shot himself after attacking Anne-Marie Greenall, who he was convinced was cheating on him, inquest told
A police firearms officer shot himself dead outside his lover's home over fears he would be jailed for assaulting her, an inquest heard.
Nick Corless, 36, left his wife and newborn son for his Greater Manchester police colleague Anne-Marie Greenall, but became convinced she was cheating on him with another officer and attacked her after she refused to sleep with him.
Two days later, in February 2011, the former soldier drove to her home in St Helens and used his police-issue weapon to kill himself. He was found in his grey Volkswagen Golf car, with a gunshot wound to the head. He wrote in a suicide note that he would be waiting for her "in another life".
Coroner Christopher Sumner told the hearing at Whiston hospital how Corless was enraptured with his colleague and unable to face the prospect of jail after the assault.
Recording a suicide verdict, the coroner said: "In his mind he thought that at best he would be reported to GMP's professional standards department for an internal review, but at worst he could face criminal charges and possible imprisonment. It obviously played on his mind that he could face imprisonment and prison is not the most pleasant place at the best of times, but especially for police officers it is a most unpleasant place.
"It is clear that he intended to take his own life."
The inquest heard that Corless, also of St Helens, joined GMP in 2001 after working in Merseyside and in London, and was based at Manchester airport. He and Greenall had rekindled a previous relationship but within a week of separating from his wife he had attacked his lover by punching her in the face. Two days later he was dead.
At the inquest, Corless' family told how he was a "loving family man who loved his job as a police officer". He was said to have an impeccable firearms record and there was nothing to suggest he was a danger to himself or others.