A doctor and his wife committed suicide with drugs at a country hotel in east Devon after a neighbour witnessed their wills, an inquest heard.

The bodies of 43-year-old Dr Michael Griffin and his 59-year-old wife Adele, of Arwenack Avenue, Falmouth, Cornwall were found in a room at the Waterloo Cross Inn, near Willand, on August 16, 2002.

Coroner Dr Elizabeth Erland recorded verdicts that the couple, who married in 1991, committed suicide.

Dr Griffin had taken a fatal amount of the morphine-like drug tramadol, and his wife had taken tramadol and the anti-depressant amitriptyline.

There was no sign of the leukaemia that Mrs Griffin, a housewife, was said to be suffering from, said the coroner at the inquest in Cullompton, Devon.

In the hotel room where the couple were found was a letter addressed: 'To the police who find us.'

'The letter to the police indicates their desire to be cremated together, and their intentions of death,' the coroner said.

The inquest heard that the couple were booked into the hotel on the night of August 14, 2002 the day neighbour Doreen Pike witnessed their wills.

Mrs Pike said Dr Griffin told her he was going away to Oxford with Adele, adding that she presumed it may have been for medical treatment as Mrs Griffin had leukaemia. Mrs Pike said that Dr Griffin was 'smiling and laughing'.

That night Dr Griffin booked the couple into the hotel, paying £100 in advance for two nights and asking not to be disturbed because he wanted a lie-in. The couple's bodies were discovered on the morning of August 16, after a cleaner had been unable to get into the room.

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