AN INQUEST has been opened into the death of a 30-year-old man who stepped out in front of a Macclesfield to Manchester train.

Coroner for Cheshire, Nicholas Rheinberg, summoned a jury to hear how Stephen Paul Messam, of Charlotte Street West, Macclesfield, stood in front of the train as it passed through a tunnel under Hibel Road, on July 3, 2008.

In a statement read out at Warrington Coroner’s Court, train driver Gary Willcox said: "Suddenly something came from the left, I put the brakes into step one – this allowed the train to slow down.  I quickly realised that it was a male person and applied the emergency brakes, the male stepped out as if he was going across the track.  He started facing me, not moving with his arms stretched out."

His mother Anne Messam told the coroner he suffered from epilepsy and had been experiencing paranoid delusions.

Mrs Messam, of Hurdsfield Road, said: "He found it very difficult to accept. In the past he heard people calling his name when no one was there, he felt he was being followed. But in the last few days of his life this was very severe. He felt his phone was tapped, (that) he was being stalked by people tapping into his phone."

His father, Paul Messam, told the court he had concerns over his health and had attended his own doctor’s surgery the day before he died.

He said: "Towards the end he was extremely ill and I was very, very worried about him. I made an appointment with the doctor. I told him that I had my son staying with me and I’m very worried about him. I said that I think, at the moment, he is thinking of getting a weapon and blowing everyone away or killing himself."

The court heard how Mr Messam had been admitted to Macclesfield District General Hospital three weeks before his tragic death, on June 6, 2008, after taking an overdose.

Locum psychiatrist, Dr Sanni, treated Mr Messam and referred him to the mental health team for further assessment within the community.

He said: "He told me that he had lost his job two days prior to the overdose. He denied any disillusion of belief, he denied any visual hallucination. He was engaging with me. At that time, he was low risk."

Speaking at the inquest, Veronica Critchley, clinical service manager for Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, said that Mr Messam had been referred to the mental health team, but contact was not made with him.

She said: "The plan was that the duty worker on that day was to make contact and look into the situation with regards to Mr Messam. When we looked into it we found no evidence that it had been followed up by a duty worker or the team. I’ve not been given an adequate explanation as to why that didn’t happen."

The inquest was adjourned until Monday, July 20.