A man shot himself dead after bludgeoning his love rival to death with a hammer, despite his wife's desperate attempts to stop the frenzied attack.

Lynne Channon's husband Douglas attacked her lover, Steven Veale, then shot himself twice in the grounds of the Effingham Park Hotel, Copthorne.

Mrs Channon, 49, told the inquest at Haywards Heath she drove into a car park at the hotel with Mr Veale, 50, as a passenger. "Before I'd even switched the engine of my car off, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw Doug standing in the bushes. It wasn't a surprise to see him.

"I was angry because Doug had harassed Steve an awful lot and tried to get him dismissed from his job. I said to Steve 'Oh my God, Doug's here again'. With that, Steve threw the passenger door open.

"I reached my hand across to try to get his leather jacket, to try to stop him going out. It just went from my fingers. I sat in my car just for a few seconds, thinking 'I don't want to see this'.

"I always knew that if this confrontation happened, Steve would be all right because he was a lot fitter than my husband. He was a karate expert and my husband was not a violent person.

"I got out of my car. I heard my husband whipping Steve with what I thought was a chain. I thought it was like a bicycle chain but the police found a piece of tubing.

"The next thing I saw, Steve was on the floor and I couldn't understand why he wasn't moving. I ran over and tried to pull my husband away. He just picked me up and threw me into the bushes."

Mrs Channon said she then saw her husband hit Mr Veale several times with a claw hammer while Mr Veale was on the ground. She tried to restrain him again.

"My husband threw the hammer to one side, took two steps back and took a gun out of his pocket. As far as I knew, he didn't have a gun at home. It was an air pistol, larger than just a normal handgun.

"He showed it to me. I thought 'He's going to shoot me now'.

"He put his legs astride, turned the gun, put it in his mouth and shot himself. He reeled from the impact, took the gun out of his mouth, turned and walked out of the car park.

"I was just screaming at this time but I heard another shot."

Det Insp Michael Hines, of East Grinstead CID, said Mr Veale was found in a very large pool of blood and a claw hammer was found in a pool of blood in the car park area.

The body of Mr Channon was a short distance away on Effingham Golf Course, with an air pistol and two small handguns nearby.

Det Insp Hines said packaging in Mr Channon's car showed he had bought the three weapons from a gun shop in Wallington, Surrey, in the fortnight before the incident.

Post mortems showed Mr Veale died from seven blows to the head and Mr Channon from gunshot wounds to the head.

After 14 years of marriage, Mr and Mrs Channon had separated a few weeks before the fatal confrontation.

They were no longer living together in Lake View Road, Furnace Wood, Felbridge, at the time of the deaths on the night of April 3/4.

Mrs Channon said Mr Channon, 55, had become mildly depressed after losing his job in the mid-Nineties. He eventually found another job but she started work as a waitress at the hotel.

Mrs Channon met Mr Veale for the first time last October and their relationship developed. Mr Channon found out in February and it was around this time when Mrs Channon moved out.

She said of her husband: "He was never physically violent towards me at all but he was very verbally aggressive."

On April 3, Mr Channon called his wife on a mobile phone to say he had booked a holiday for the married couple.

Mrs Channon said: "This was to try to lure me away. The day before, he had suggested maybe that we would go on holiday.

"I said to him that I didn't see what it was going to resolve. But he always used our daughter like a pawn in the situation and said she was really looking forward to going away. I agreed to go."

West Sussex Coroner Roger Stone recorded a verdict of unlawful killing on Mr Veale and said Mr Channon had taken his own life. "This appears to have been an out-of-character explosive event between two men."