A WREXHAM man has told how he found his lottery winner lover hanged at the foot of the stairs in the house they shared.

Joshua Jones tried in vain to revive Richard Lang, 31, following the instructions over the telephone from ambulance staff until paramedics arrived.

Mr Lang had kept his job with British Waterways even though he won £867,454 on the lottery five years ago.

Mr Jones did not attend the inquest in Leicester, where he and Mr Lang lived, but said in a statement to the hearing that he realised something was wrong when his partner had not gone out to the works van which called to take him to work.

He told the hearing: “I was half asleep and I heard some noises on the stairs which I assumed was Mr Lang getting ready for work.”

But he said when he heard the van arrive he noticed Mr Lang did not leave the house as normal.

“After approximately five minutes I thought it was strange that the van was still out on the driveway so I went downstairs.

“As I looked down to the ground floor I thought I saw Mr Lang kneeling on the floor. I went down the stairs where I realised he was hanging from the bannister using the Hoover cord.”

Mr Jones said he called his mother, because he panicked. She advised him to call an ambulance and she called one herself.

The police detective who interviewed Mr Jones said the two men had met on a website.

DC Jessica Card said the couple had communicated regularly, then met up because Mr Jones was having problems at home.

He started staying over and it developed from there.

DC Card said: “He said that they had had a sexual relationship but it had not really gone on to what I would consider to be a conventional relationship."

The inquest heard a post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as hanging, and no other illnesses were found that might have contributed to Mr Lang’s death.

He did not leave a suicide note and police found no clues to suggest why he killed himself.

Mr Lang’s mother, Yvonne Greenwood, said they had never heard of Mr Jones and did not know he was living with her son.

Coroner Martin Gotheridge said although it seemed Mr Lang had committed suicide he did not have enough evidence to be sure what was in his mind at the time he died so recorded an open verdict.