BP executive hanged himself at home after losing job over Covid
A SENIOR executive at BP hanged himself at his £2million home a week after he was made redundant because of the pandemic, an inquest heard.
Nick Spencer, 61, who was newly married, feared he would have to remortgage the house as it would be impossible to find another job in an industry decimated by the Covid crisis.
The manager, who was the vice- president of global refining for five years during a decade at the petroleum giant, was found in his garage on April 7.
He had first spoken of suicidal thoughts in January when he learned his time at the firm was coming to an end, the hearing was told.
When ousted from his role on March 31, he was unable to have a leaving do because the country was in lockdown, an episode said to have affected him badly. In a statement to the hearing, which was attended by Mr Spencer’s sons Robert and Richard, his new wife Eve said: ‘Since he was made redundant he had been depressed.
‘He had been looking for a new job and I felt he seemed positive but there was an oil crisis because of Covid-19 and he was worried about remortgaging the house and the finances.
‘In the period leading up to his death, he seemed a bit more down and it was the 12th anniversary of a family bereavement.
‘On the evening before his death, we watched the news and went to bed. We talked about TV and he came to bed at 2am, which was unusually late. At 6.40am on April 7 he got up.
‘He was normally an early riser and I went back to sleep.’ She said when she woke up and went downstairs, she found notes addressed to her and to his children. ‘I opened the one addressed to me and called the police. I was very worried.’ Mr Spencer’s body was discovered by a police officer in the double garage of the home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.
Recording a verdict of suicide, Buckinghamshire senior coroner Crispin Butler told the hearing in the town that
Mr Spencer’s redundancy worries, along with a ‘depressive illness’, led to him taking his own life.
He said: ‘Saying goodbye to people he worked with but not in the way in which one hoped because he couldn’t have a leaving party and the physical element of having his IT equipment taken from his home address had affected him.
‘It seems his depressive illness, loss of work, his personality, uncertainty about finances, remortgaging, an element of social anxiety and a life-long privacy all affected him.’
Mr Spencer, who led an organisation of more than 7,500 staff from BP’s British HQ, had seen a psychiatrist on January 18 and had discussed the prospect of losing his job and having sucidal thoughts.
But he cancelled further appointments and the psychiatrist said he felt Mr Spencer would not act of those thoughts as he was too concerned about his family.
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‘He seemed a bit more down’