Financier talked of suicide as banking crisis worsened

The wife of a City financier who threw himself under a train as the credit crunch worsened has told how he talked about killing himself days earlier.

Multi-millionaire Kirk Stephenson, 47, was a £330,000-a-year chief operating officer of Chelsea-based Olivant Advisors which had a £1billion stake in Swiss baking giant UBS.

But as the global financial crisis deepened, Mr Stephenson became gripped by fear of its impact on the business and his financial status, an inquest into his death heard yesterday. After leaving his £3.6 million Chelsea home, which he shared with his wife Karina Robinson and their eight-year-old son, Mr Stephenson drove his Mercedes to Taplow station in Buckinghamshire, a notorious suicide spot.

He then waited on the platform before throwing himself in front of a First Great Western Express from Plymouth to Paddington. New Zealand-born Mr Stephenson, known as Ross to close friends and family, died instantly.

A jury at Buckinghamshire coroner's court was read a statement from Miss Robinson, recounting the days before her husband's death on 25 September.

She said: "When the banking system started to collapse, Ross became very tense and worried about a lot of things he had worked hard for. He was slowly getting more worried and on Monday, 22 September, he came home for dinner He looked very stressed and mentioned killing himself over the credit crunch but he could not do it because he loved me and the child too much."

Miss Robinson said that three days later her husband left home as usual at 7.45am to go to work. He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt and light-coloured tie.

She said: "He kissed me and our child in the normal way and he left the house. Nothing in his manner gave me any cause for concern. At about 8.50am I received an email from Ross making plans to go away for the weekend.

"We had already booked to go to Austria for Christmas and to go away for half term in February 2009. We had no problems, the only worry was losing money with the credit crunch.

"Before the banking crisis the subject of harming himself had never been discussed and was totally out of character for Ross."

Minutes after sending the email to his wife, Mr Stephenson jumped in front of the train, travelling at 125mph.

Iain Bassett, who was driving the train, said: "He dropped what he was carrying, sprinted to the edge of the platform, threw his arms out and jumped clear of the platform and landed on his feet in between the running rails. He then turned and faced the train. He wasn't looking at me."

Mr Bassett slammed on the emergency brake and sounded the horn.

He added: "There was nothing else I could do. As the train approached he did not try to get out of the way but he did fall backwards to ready himself for the impact.His arms were still out-stretched.

"The last view I had of him was when he fell on his back and his lower legs had raised so that his feet were off the ground. At that point I turned away." A post-mortem examination carried out by Dr David Bailey gave the cause of death as multiple injuries.

Toxicology test results showed no evidence of drink or drugs in Mr Stephenson's body.

A jury of six men and four women took 20 minutes to return a verdict of suicide.