A DISABLED man who was taunted for years by children hurling stones at his house and shouting abuse killed himself after leaving a note to his wife saying: “The kids have beaten me.”

Martin James would always confront troublemakers and became the target of youths because they could provoke a reaction from him, an inquest was told. In the last two years of his life, as he fought ill-health, he became increasingly worried about the youths who gathered outside his Gloucester house to torment him.

He became so desperate that on one occasion he grabbed his airgun and fired a shot above their heads, only to find himself in trouble with police. Four days after officers visited him to say he had to attend an official interview, he hanged himself in his shed on August 20.

Alan Crickmore, the Gloucester Coroner, who recorded a verdict of suicide, said that Mr James, 64, had suffered a campaign of torment. He said: “This is a tragic case.”

The retired demolition contractor’s wife, Angela, 37, told the inquest in Gloucester: “The police just didn’t do enough . . . He was always making 999 calls. The police didn’t respond and if they did it wasn’t very often.”

“In the end it was just too much for him.”

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