A MAN who went missing in the Cotswolds was found dead by a local resident who went searching for him after seeing a police appeal on Facebook, an inquest heard.

Depressed Cooper Galbraith, 51, of Manchester Road, Isle of Dogs, London, had returned to his family home in Winchcombe three weeks before his death to ‘gather his thoughts,’ the Gloucester inquest was told.

His mother reported him missing on October 23 last year and police then put out a Facebook appeal for information to help locate him.

The appeal was seen the next day by local man Gregg Rogers, who set out on a walk around the area and discovered Mr Galbraith dead in a barn where he had taken his life. In a statement to the inquest Mr Rogers said that after reading the appeal he decided to go for a walk along the old Brockhampton Road area of Winchcombe as he was a keen walker in the area.

He said that he walked into two woods adjacent to the road and then followed the footpaths and looked around a copse and ended up at Westhatch Farm, an isolated group of barns.

He told the inquest that he looked around the barns and it was there that he discovered the body of Mr Galbraith.

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The inquest heard that Pc Luke Timmings found a suicide note in Mr Galbraith’s trousers.

Mr Galbraith’s mother said she had reported him missing at 11.48am on Wednesday, October 23, having become worried as she had last seen him at 1pm the day before he left her home in Summers Road in Winchcombe to go for a walk.

He had been with her for three weeks having left his London home, which he shared with his partner, to spend some time gathering his thoughts.

Pathologist Dr Matthew Beasley carried out the post mortem and found that there was enough alcohol in Mr Galbraith’s body to make him feel drunk, but not enough to cause death.

He said there was no evidence of any other substances in his body and believed that he died from the effects of hanging.

Ian Dreelan, the assistant coroner for Gloucestershire concluded: “The medical cause of Mr Galbraith’s death was from the effects of hanging which was brought on by suicide.”