A businessman who returned home to West Wellow from France got no answer from his wife when he called out: "I'm home."

"I looked in the kitchen and realised something was very wrong," Michael Bush told the mid-Hampshire coroner, Grahame Short.

"There was blood on the worktops, floor and table and knives and utensils out of the drawers."

Bloodstains on the carpet led upstairs. Mr Bush said: "I looked in the bathroom and found my wife on the floor. It seemed obvious she had been there some time. I went down and phoned police and ambulance."

The coroner recorded a verdict of suicide on Mrs Bush (57). who lived with her husband in Warwick Close. They had been married 36 years.

In his summing up, Mr Short said Mrs Bush had been almost naked and covered in blood when she was found on September 22nd.

Home Office pathologist, Michael Anscombe, found that she had died from multiple stab wounds. There was a high level of an anti-depressant drug, amounting to an overdose, in her blood.

It was impossible to say when and in what sequence Mrs Bush took the overdose, the coroner went on. "It would seem she carried out the injuries in the kitchen, made her way upstairs, lay on the bed and then went to the bathroom where the fatal injuries were applied."

A note written by Mrs Bush and found in the kitchen showed a state of mind suggestive of someone contemplating suicide, the coroner continued, saying that she had a history of depression and attempts to take her own life. He found that she had wounded herself deliberately to kill herself.

"I suspect her decision to stop taking anti-depressants medicine some weeks before is relevant. When she started this period of depression, there was no relief and this caused her mental imbalance."

A statement read on behalf on Mrs Bush's GP, Dr Sharon Allen, said when she saw her on August 30th, she had been in good spirits and looking forward to the birth of her grandchild.

"I am surprised by the circumstances she was found in," the doctor commented. "She was deeply religious and involved heavily with church activities in Romsey, She was a lovely lady, always keen to occupy herself."

Mr Bush told the coroner he had last seen his wife alive on September17th, before he went abroad.

He said: "The mood changed between the 16th and 17th. Maureen's moods could change rapidly. On the 17th, she was clearly starting a bout of depression, but not, I thought, particularly severe."