A hotel guest was electrocuted in the shower as he warned his sweetheart: "Don't touch me, don't touch me, electric".

Steve Jupp died after a bolt shot through his body while he stood in a bath in a Parisian guesthouse.

Hours earlier, the 40-year-old painter and decorator had watched singer Robbie Williams in concert in the French capital.

An an inquest at Brighton County Court Mr Jupps' partner Jayne Saxby sobbed as she recalled the horrific moments leading to his death.

Ms Saxby told how she tried desperately to perform CPR on the father-of-five as he lay prone in the bath on June 18, 2006.

The night before the incident, the couple had been to the concert at the Parc Des Princes, arriving back at the hotel in the early hours.

Ms Saxby, 44, of Portview, South Heighton near Newhaven, described how they had slept late the next morning.

She told the inquest she heard Mr Jupp, her partner of some eight years, getting up at around 11.15am to take a shower at their Forest Hill Paris La Villette hotel.

She said: "He had been in there several minutes, long enough to have a shower.

"All of a sudden I heard a scream and I ran into the room. I thought the water had got hot so I pushed back the curtain and turned both the taps off.

"As I stood up Steve was standing there holding the rail and he was shaking. His teeth were gritted and he said 'don't touch me, don't touch me, electric'.

"I tried to push him and as I did it shot up my arm and pushed me back so I ran into the bedroom, picked up the phone and said 'help, help, I need a doctor'."

Ms Saxby, who spoke no French, told how she feared hotel staff did not understand her and instead told them Mr Jupp had had a heart attack to try and communicate the emergency.

She then returned to the bathroom and tried in vain several times to give her partner CPR but was hampered by his position in the bath.

She said: "He was just lying there starring up at me with no expression on his face."

She tried to lift him out of the bath and onto the bathroom floor but at 17 stone, he was too heavy for her to manage alone.

When hotel staff and then ambulance crews arrived, they lifted Mr Jupp from the bath and tried to resuscitate him.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ms Saxby flew home that night and was met at London City Airport by her sister.

A French investigation into Mr Jupp's death is still underway.

The Brighton inquest considered evidence from the French investigation so far and heard evidence from Ms Saxby and qualified electrical engineer Stephen Everest from Burgess Hill.

The report by French electrical engineers showed the bathroom light had been incorrectly wired and its housing had become live with 230 volts of electricity.

Mr Everest explained that Mr Jupp must have moved the shower curtain pole so it either touched or was very close to the light, causing the electricity to surge through him as he stood in the wet bath.

Coroner Veronica Hamilton-Deeley recorded a narrative verdict of death by electrocution.

She said: "Mr Jupp was electrocuted in circumstances where he was holding the shower curtain pole while showering in the bath.

"The pole became live because it moved and he had come into contact with or in very close proximity to the end shield of the wall-mounted lighting fixture.

"The fixture was already live because it had been connected to its supply circuit in contravention of the regulations applying to such electrical work and the resulting electric shock which he sustained caused his immediate death in the bath."

She added: "The circumstances were perfect for the opportunistic current to use him as a means to earth itself, electrocuting him as it did so."

Mr Jupp, a painter and decorator for Lancing firm Southern Property Maintenance, had bought the concert tickets for him and Ms Saxby as a Christmas present for her in 2005.

The French investigation into his death continues.