A former top tennis player was driven to suicide after losing a court case, an inquest heard.

Malcolm Gedge, 52, of Moatcroft Road, Eastbourne, was discovered in his flat by paramedics on March 20 this year.

Coroner Brendan Salsbury, sitting at Eastbourne magistrates court yesterday, heard the father of two had taken more than 50 times the therapeutic level of paracetamol and left notes to his estranged wife Susan, of Church Street, Eastbourne, and their daughters.

Mrs Gedge told the court she and her husband had taken a building firm to court after work in the garden of their previous home had gone wrong.

She said: "He was a Sussex number one tennis player and a very successful businessman until he lost the court case in 1993.

"He felt he had let us down as a family because we had lost everything.

"He couldn't deal with feeling he was responsible.

"I told him it wasn't his fault. It was the legal people, they let us down."

The couple moved to Eastbourne in 1995 and lived separately. The court heard Mrs Gedge, a therapist in complementary medicine, phoned her husband daily and visited regularly as did her daughters, aged 22 and 25.

Mr Gedge, a motorbike dealer, was diagnosed with a bipolar personality disorder which meant he would fluctuate between manic and depressive moods during long periods of time.

He was briefly sectioned at the Eastbourne District General Hospital in 1994 during one of his manic moods.

Mr Gedge's psychiatrist Richard Bowskill told the court he had been taking mood stabilising drugs, anti-depressants and sleeping pills.

Mr Bowskill said: "His daughters had a huge amount of faith in him. They felt he could overcome the illness with his willpower alone because he had achieved so much with his willpower in the past."

He said there was a high suicide rate among sufferers with a bipolar disorder.

Mrs Gedge told the court her husband had disliked taking the drugs but feared going back into hospital if he did not comply.

Mr Salsbury recorded a verdict of suicide.