For the second time in eight years, Richard Todd, the actor, suffered another of his sons killing himself with a gun, an inquest heard yesterday.

Peter Palethorpe-Todd, 53, shot himself in a car park in East Malling, Kent, last September after leaving a note to his wife, who was threatening to leave him, saying: "I am so sorry but I could not face life alone without you."

In 1997, Mr Palethorpe-Todd's half-brother Seumas, 20, shot himself in the head in a similar suicide.

Jill Palethorpe-Todd, Peter's wife, told the inquest in Maidstone yesterday: "Seumas killed himself with a shotgun and it did have an effect on Peter. He was originally very angry but, because he wasn't a chap to talk about things, it took its toll on him."

Mrs Palethorpe-Todd, the director of an events management company, said that there had been some "very bad" problems in their marriage. Her husband, a racing car company executive, had health problems he could not cope with, including diabetes, and "alcohol had become a problem for some time".

She added: "He was a man who liked to be in control. He was obsessive. It had got worse over the last five to six years. I wanted to leave and told him so. He would say that I couldn't leave the house or he would kill himself."

She said that on the evening before his death she was considering leaving him. "He had been getting very aggressive. I had had enough. He knew time was running out."

A passer-by found Mr Palethorpe-Todd's body slumped in his car outside a nearby village hall. A note to his wife was found in the car along with one apologising to whoever found him.

Roger Sykes, the East Kent and Medway coroner, recorded a verdict of suicide.

Richard Todd, 86, who lives in Lincolnshire, had three sons and a daughter from his marriages to Catherine Bogle and Virginia Mailer. He did not attend the inquest.

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