BY PETE HENSHAW

AN ALSAGER schoolboy hanged himself when a prank went tragically wrong.

Eleven-year-old Marcus Samuels was found hanged by his dressing gown cord in the bedroom of his Alsager home.

An inquest, on Wednesday, heard how Marcus was in good spirits in the days before his death on November 9 last year.

Marcus had returned to his home in Coronation Avenue, Alsager, after attending Alsager High School for the day.

Through a written statement Marcus' mother Julie Gaffney told the court Marcus had been in high spirits after passing a swimming test at school that day.

She told the inquest: "At 5.30pm Marcus went up to the bedroom and when I went up he was playing on his Playstation and we chatted for 10 minutes.

"I went downstairs to watch a video programme which lasted about an hour and I put a pizza in the oven for tea," explained Mrs Gaffney.

Mrs Gaffney then called Marcus for his tea later on but he did not answer or come downstairs.

"It is not unusual for Marcus to carry on playing when I call him for tea," she explained.

After a while Marcus had still not appeared and Mrs Gaffney went upstairs and found him hanged by his dressing gown cord from the top bunk of his bunkbeds.

"When I first saw him I thought he was just fooling around then I went to him and grabbed hold of him, the front of his dressing gown cord was tied around his neck and to the bed," Mrs Gaffney said.

Mrs Gaffney called 999 on her mobile and Marcus was rushed to Leighton Hospital, but was dead on arrival.

Martin Wardle was Marcus' best friend and saw him hours before the accident. In a statement read out in court he said: "There was nothing unusual about his behaviour and I cannot imagine that he would have deliberately harmed himself."

In recording a verdict of accidental death Mr Rheinberg said: "We do not know precisely what happened but I must be satisfied that it was Marcus himself who tied the cord around his neck.

"I suspect that Marcus was engaged in some sort of joke or game that went horribly and sadly wrong, it was a very tragic accident," he added.