MYSTERY surrounds why a paranoid schizophrenic killed himself just a day after planning out his future.

Warrington Coroners' Court heard last Thursday how David Newman, aged 58, of Penshaw Court, Hallwood, Runcorn, died after throwing himself off the Hallwood Link Road Bridge at about 9.11am on June 6 last year.

Steven Mercer, who saw Mr Newman plunge to his death, said: "I saw a figure just flop over and fall straight down. It looked like he made one pushing movement "At first I thought a dummy had been pushed off by kids, but there was no one else on the bridge."

The court was told how Manchester-born Mr Newman, who had a daughter Susan in foster care and struggling with crippling debts, had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act at Whiston Hospital on March 1 last year before being transferred to the Brooker Centre psychiatric hospital in Runcorn six weeks later.

However, in the days leading up to his death, Mr Newman, who was to appeal against his diagnosis, had been looking ahead positively to his future.

Dr Abdul Quayyam, consultant psychiatrist at the centre, said: "The night before the incident he was talking to a nurse about how his daughter was better off with her foster parents and how he was planning to relocate back to Manchester.

"There was no indication he was planning to kill himself."

No suicide note was found.

But Dr Quayyam added that Mr Newman, who was granted occasional unsupervised leave, was prone to erratic and paranoid outbursts without medication.

"When he was ill or had not taken his medication, he would become paranoid and Cheshire Coroner Nicholas Rheinberg, ruled that Mr Newman took his own life the while balance of his mind was disturbed.