A 20-YEAR-OLD Bicester man and cannabis user hanged himself after arguing with his girlfriend, who was in his home at the time, a court heard.

The couple exchanged angry text messages in the two-storey home just before Aaron Edwards killed himself in the backyard shed, Oxfordshire Coroner’s Court heard on Wednesday.

“Aaron Edwards intended to take his own life and therefore I’m to determine a verdict of suicide,” said coroner Darren Salter. “This is obviously a very sad case.”

Mr Edwards’ girlfriend of two years, Rebecca Mitchell, said in a statement read in court she was “in shock” about his death.

She added: “I never thought Aaron would take his own life.”

Ms Mitchell gave evidence she went to Mr Edwards’ home, in Kingsclere Road, with their 10-month-old baby to spend the night on January 23. The court heard how the couple argued earlier that evening and again after midnight when Ms Mitchell went to bed upstairs.

Then, for about six minutes from 2.14am on January 24, they continued arguing through a series of text messages while she remained upstairs, the court was told.

At 2.20am Mr Edwards, a restaurant kitchen assistant, stopped replying. The court heard how about 25 minutes later, Ms Mitchell went outside to check on him and found him hanging in the shed.

The coroner said Mr Edwards “may have been intoxicated” by cannabis at the time of his death.

Evidence indicated he had a “high concentration” of the cannabis mind-altering ingredient THC in his blood at the time of death.

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