A MOTHER relived the horror of finding her 21-year-old son hanging, at an inquest yesterday.

Geraldine Pierce found Stephen Pierce hanging from a washing line at the family home in Bollington Road, Middlesbrough.

Because he was always crying wolf, and threatening suicide, deputy Teesside Coroner Gordon Hetherington rcorded an open verdict on the death of Mr Pierce.

There was no suicide note, but a mobile telephone was found switched on, below Mr Pierce's body, indicating he might have been trying to tell somebody what he was doing.

His mother said: "I don't think he meant to (do it). He probably just did it as a sort of cry for help.''

In July 1998 and again in 2000 Mr Pierce had taken overdoses.

But psychiatrist Amanda Gash told the inquest in Middlesbrough, she did not think there was a true intention to take his own life.

The inquest heard Mr Pierce had taken cocaine, morphine, Ecstasy and alcohol shortly before putting his head in the noose.

The last person to see him alive was his girlfriend Gemma Norris, 17, who was then four months pregnant.

She said they had a row after she saw that he had taken a lot of drugs.

She said: "He said 'I won't be here tomorrow, I am going to kill myself'. He threatened to do it so many times, I didn't believe him."

Mr Hetherington recorded an open verdict.

She described Mr Pierce as having been "a rather immature young man".