An inquest has heard how a Carnmenellis, Stithians, man died aboard a boat in Falmouth harbour following a catalogue of mysterious circumstances.

West Cornwall coroner, Dr Emma Carlyon, yesterday resumed the inquest into the death of private investigator and smallholder Stephen Douglas, aged 44.

Witnesses told how, on Friday, January 24, 2003, Mr Douglas left his home and drove into Falmouth, taking a vehicle from Ponsharden which he drove the short distance to the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club.

There he boarded a dinghy which did not belong to him. He was subsequently seen in the water, at which point the Coastguard service was alerted. But when a pilot boat went to investigate, Mr Douglas was seen on a yacht, 100 yards off the Flushing shore.

The pilot crew asked Mr Douglas if he needed help and got only grunts as replies. They stood down when they knew the inshore lifeboat crew were arriving, but the RNLI men were shocked to discover the man waving a gun at them, at which point they withdrew.

Mr Douglas had been seen climbing on the boom, then jumping two or three times by a land-based witness at Flushing, Derek Hall. Mr Hall saw Mr Douglas jump again and then be still.

Mr Douglas's body was subsequently recovered from the boat, the Felice, and a post mortem carried out by Home Office pathologist Dr Guyan Fernando concluded conclusively that he had died from hanging.

With each witness who gave evidence, Dr Carlyon carefully asked whether there had seemed to have been any police presence, gunfire or sounds of police negotiation. Each witness said no in all three cases.

A statement from Mr Douglas's GP, Dr Mike Ellis, of Penryn, revealed that Mr Douglas had received counselling following a bout of depression over eight years leading up to 2002, although he had refused to take medication. Dr Ellis considered the counselling to have been successful and did not treat Mr Douglas for any sort of depression-related illness afterwards.

Mr Douglas's widow, Avril, confirmed that family problems in the past had made her husband depressed, but since then they had been a happy, close-knit family.

At one point, a long-running and bitter dispute was raised in the courtroom by members of Mr Douglas's family, but the contributions were almost wholly dismissed because of their irrelevance to Dr Carlyon's enquiry. She ordered a short adjournment to calm matters down.

Mrs Douglas told the court that her husband was not suicidal, but had been agitated deeply in the days leading up to his death as he became increasingly concerned about the safety of himself and his family.

This had come about in the wake of a police raid upon the family's home in which Mr Douglas's computer was taken away for two months. He thought that when the computer was returned it may have been fitted with software which would download unsuitable material for which he could be prosecuted. He claimed people were watching the family home and believed phones were being tapped. He even mentioned the existence of a sinister cult.

On the day he died, he took an air gun with him because he felt "they" were going to shoot at him. Mrs Douglas assumed "they" were the police.

She thought he was going to take a vehicle and flee the county by road in order to alert authorities outside of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary area. Because his last words to her had been to get Mrs Douglas and the children to safety, she went to Helston that evening, to be with friends. It was later she learned of the tragedy in Falmouth harbour.

Mrs Douglas described her husband as a well-balanced person. "I have no idea what made him behave in the way he did," she told the inquest.

She thoutht he might have been heading for the boat of Chris Cooper, a friend, but that he got on the wrong vessel. "I think he was hoping to sail it out."

Retired company director Derek Hall, who lives in a house at Flushing overlooking Falmouth Harbour, and who has an astronomical telescope, told how he followed what happened on board the Felice.

He saw a man on board the boat, waving what he thought was an air pistol. He saw the lifeboat crew come near, then retreat, before the man eventually climbed the mast and jumped two or three times, before a final jump when he appeared to hang himself.

The strength and accuracy of his telescope meant he was very certain of what he saw. He thought, at first, Mr Douglas was just very stupid, being naked from the waist upward on a cold January day, yet not appearing to be in any distress.

Mr Hall confirmed that there appeared to be no-one else on the boat and no police officers nearby during the incident, just the lifeboat and pilot boat crews.

His evidence was backed up by near neighbour Veryan Pool, who lives with her husband closer to the Flushing shore. She saw the dinghy Mr Douglas appears to have been using at some point floating free off the shore and went to try to bring it in, but found it had no oars.

She and her husband followed the incident intermittently, but were preparing to go out for the evening so did not see all that went on. "Because it was in the hands of other people, we didn't really carry on watching," she said.

Pilot Alan Stephens, who works for Falmouth Harbour Commissioners, told how he, Gordon Kent and Andrew Dale had gone out searching for a man in the water following a call from Falmouth Coastguard. Having failed to spot anyone, they approached Mr Douglas on the Felice, at first to ask him if he had seen anything, but they soon realised that it was he who had been in the water.

When asked if he needed help, Mr Douglas just grunted a reply. When they heard that the lifeboat was approaching, they pulled back, returning later on, without Mr Kent, when they learnt there was a firearm involved, in order to help keep other vessels away from the area.

At the time of going to press, the inquest was continuing.