WIDOW: Wendy Cullen was disappointed the coroner didn't make more of the crippling debt her husband built up (30470) A MOTOR mechanic killed himself after building up £130,000 of credit card debt, an inquest heard on Tuesday.

Richard Cullen, 65, was found dead in his car at his home at Wyke Road, Trowbridge, in January.

This week his grieving widow, Wendy, spoke of her disappointment that more was not made of the debt at the inquest.

She said: "I was shocked that the coroner didn't even mention the level of debt. It wasn't what I expected at all."

Mr Cullen's family did not realise the scale of his money problems until after his death, when they discovered he had up to 20 credit cards and was borrowing from one to make payments on another.

In a statement read to the coroner's court in Salisbury on Tuesday his stepson, Christopher Earl, said: "In all the time I knew him Richard never talked to me about his personal finances.

"It was only in the last few months my mother made me aware there were problems with credit card companies. She said she thought the debt was about £30,000."

The coroner heard Mr Cullen, an insulin dependent diabetic, left home on January 10 to go on a trip to France, something he did regularly.

When he failed to return his wife called the police and reported him missing and then on January 12 his stepson discovered his body in a car in his garage.

The court heard Mr Cullen had been increasingly worried about the state of his health, which was deteriorating due to diabetes, and had been quiet and withdrawn in the days before his death.

One of the last people to see him alive was his former wife, Jennifer Manning, of Bradford on Avon.

In her statement she said: "He looked rigid, as if he had retreated into his mind."

Since his death the credit card companies he owed money to have cancelled the debt but his widow still has to live both with his death and the fact that he felt unable to share his problems with her.

She said: "When you are with someone for 25 years you think you know them.

"I have been lonely and sad. You get used to being with someone and it is terrible to just be on your own."

Credit card debt in the UK broke through the £1 trillion mark last year, with some credit and store card providers charging interest at seven or eight times the Bank of England base rate.

Coroner Richard van Oppen, sitting recorded a verdict that Mr Cullen took his own life. He died from carbon monoxide poisoning

Verdict: Suicide