A DEPRESSED Southampton dad killed himself because he could not afford to buy a computer for his gifted schoolgirl daughter this Christmas.

Police found the body of tragic Gyles Morton, 42, in woodland close to the M27 following a two-day search after he disappeared on Tuesday.

His grieving widow Jan, 38, told the Daily Echo her husband of 18 years overdosed on his epilepsy medication as he felt he could not provide for them at Christmas.

She said Mr Morton desperately wanted to buy their academically gifted 16-year-old daughter Poppi, a pupil at Wildern School, Hedge End, a computer for Christmas.

He also wanted to buy their son Beau, ten, a Robot Wars toy. Beau is a pupil at St James's Primary School in West End.

Mrs Morton, of The Drive, Barnsland, West End, said: "He knew that a computer was essential for Poppi's GCSE course work she is predicted mostly A and A star grades but she has to work twice as hard as everyone else because she has not got a computer.

"Gyles felt that he was a burden on us and he felt that he was doing the right thing by getting out of our lives but this is the worst thing."

Her mother Peggy Lewis, 76, usually helped buy Christmas presents but was taken into a nursing home with senile dementia earlier this year.

Mr Morton, who had been suffering with depression, was a trained welder but could not work because he had serious epilepsy, breaking his spine in one attack 15-years ago.

"It was love at first sight when we met," said Mrs Morton. "We may not have much materialistically but we always had each other and the kids. It's going to be so hard without him."

"His epilepsy troubled him because he could not even go out of the house on his own we had to watch him all the time and he hated it."

Mr Morton told of his despair in a note he left to his family.

Police are not treating the death as suspicious and a post mortem will be carried out this week.