Anti-Depressant Feature: Inexplicable death, until drugs enter equation’

A HUNTINGDON man who killed himself in July 2005, John Bradshaw from Stukeley Meadows, was prescribed Venlafaxine, resperidone and citalapram.

His brother, Brian, who found him hanging on July 24, 2005, has blamed the suicide on the medication.

Mr Bradshaw, from Stukeley Meadows, says his older brother, John, 53, who had been a keen athlete - and was once in The Guinness Book of Records for taking part in the world's longest football match - became depressed when the tablets caused him to pile on weight and made him sweat "like a fountain".

Brian Bradshaw said: "I was very close to my brother and I never expected in a million years that he would commit suicide. His death is inexplicable until you put the drugs into the equation. When he read in the papers about people taking their lives, he always said how terrible it was for the people left behind. He would not have wished that on us."

John Bradshaw was found dead at his home in St Peter's Road, Huntingdon. His brother had gone to look for him when he failed to arrive as usual for Sunday lunch.

Mr Bradshaw said his brother had become anxious while waiting nine months for a hernia operation at Hinchingbrooke Hospital.

"He took the tablets because he had been told to take them. He used to say to me, 'if you only knew how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning. I'm sure it's the drugs, but they have told me to take them'."

The dead man's sister-in-law, Julie Bradshaw, told The Hunts Post: "He used to ask me how he could loose weight. He needed professional help. He hated how he looked.

Mrs Bradshaw said her brother-in-law, who had once been a captain of Huntingdon United FC, tried desperately to lose weight.

"He cycled every day - he would cycle the 12 miles from Huntingdon to Houghton. He went on the three-mile Ramsey Fun Run. He used to say 'I want to be like I was before'.