An elderly man killed himself by programming a robot to shoot him in the head after building the machine from plans downloaded from the internet.

Pete Tovey, 81, who lived alone, was so distressed by demands from relatives that he move into care that he rigged up the elaborate device that ended his life in the driveway of his home, according to reports.

He painstakingly assembled the machine, quietly set it up outside his suburban home on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane, placed himself in front of a .22 semi-automatic pistol loaded with four bullets and set it in motion. He was struck several times in the head.

Mr Tovey, who was born in England, left a suicide note outlining his struggle to come to terms with demands by relatives that he move out of his £450,000 home. He also explained that he chose the driveway because he knew that tradesmen working next door would find his body.

Daniel Skewes, a carpenter working on a new house next to Mr Tovey's brick home, said that he heard gunshots as he put rubbish in a skip and ran to find a “very strange” scene.

“I thought I heard three shots and when we ran next door he was lying on the driveway with gunshot wounds to the head,” he said.

Philip Nitschke, a prominent euthanasia campaigner, described the suicide as extreme and bizarre. “It is a rather violent and ultimately messy way to end one's life and there are more peaceful strategies,” he said. “I would have thought most people would take the more peaceful options.”

Neighbours portrayed a man who had appeared cheerful in the days leading up to his death. He had bought a new four-wheel-drive vehicle only last month. A woman who lived near by said that she had known Mr Tovey, whom she described as “a really marvellous man, an ideal neighbour”, since he bought his brick and tile home in 1984.

“He was born in England, like I was, and we used to enjoy our tea together,” she said. “He had visitors from England and family interstate from somewhere far away in Australia ... There was no inkling of anything amiss, it's just very sad.”

Dr Nitschke said that if the man had been ill, the case highlighted the need for the legalisation of peaceful euthanasia in Australia. He helped several ill people to end their lives in the 1990s after successfully campaigning to have a legal euthanasia law passed in the Northern Territory. The legislation was subsequently overturned by the federal Government.

“The commonest way people use to end their life in that age group is by hanging, and that's again one of the arguments we use,” he said. ” They have no access to anything more peaceful.”

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