'I can't even remember what it was': Mrs Speed, 40, told the coroner yesterday that they had a petty argument

After a brief pause to recover her composure, Mrs Speed said: 'I could see him on the stairs. His toes were in contact with the step.'

She said she then woke their two teenage sons to open up the house and called the emergency services.

On their advice, she cut her husband to the ground as paramedics were dispatched to the home near Chester on November 27.

The inquest heard that investigators believed Mr Speed had been sitting on the stairs in his garage with the ligature around his neck.

Mr Rheinberg said: 'It may have been that this was some sort of dramatic gesture, not normally in Mr Speed's character, but nonetheless, a possibility.'

Mr Rheinberg added that Mr Speed may have sat there for some time and "nodded off to sleep" with the cable around his neck.

The couple had spent their last evening together at a dinner party at a friend's house where Mr Speed and the other men had jumped into the swimming pool.

Mr Rheinberg described their behaviour as being 'over-boisterous' but Mrs Speed said that was 'quite normal' and said the evening had been 'all good fun'.

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