Job stress drove headmaster to walk into sea, inquest told

THE former headmaster of Britain’s only Roman Catholic boys boarding school walked into the sea fully clothed after he quit the role due to pressures of the job, an inquest has heard.

Adrian Wyles left his post as headmaster at The Oratory School, Oxon, a year after starting due to agitated depression as he struggled with the changes of his new post, which “just didn’t suit him,” and change in family circumstances as he moved his teacher wife and son from Kent so he could take up the position.

The 49-year-old had arrived home in wet clothes days before his death and told his wife he had been for a swim.

Tony Beldam, the coroner’s officer, told Brighton Coroners’ Court that Mr Wyles’s wife reported him missing at 9pm on May 15 after noticing the piano had fallen silent.

Mr Bedlam said: “He was playing piano in the house, then it was noticed he had stopped playing,” he said. “He left the house leaving no note.” He was found fully clothed in the water by Dover Coastguard the next day.

Veronica Hamilton-deeley, senior coroner for Brighton and Hove, said Dee Wyles had told of her husband’s history as a senior teacher but said he began suffering from depression after joining the £7,750-a-term Oratory in his first role as a headmaster.

The Royal Holloway and Durham University graduate had left his previous job as the deputy head of an independent school to take the role.

“The long and short seemed to be it didn’t suit him,” she said.

“From last year he seemed to be suffering from depression,” she said. “He didn’t get any better in spite of some assistance and I think he spent a short amount of time in hospital and that seems to have helped.”

In her conclusions, Coroner Hamilton-deeley said: “It seems to me likely he’s left the house and walked for hours on end.

“He’s certainly carried out a deliberate act but I’d be very hard put to say he’d intended to drown himself.”

The coroner recorded a short narrative conclusion that said: “Mr Wyles drowned after having entered the sea fully clothed on May 16 2017, and his purpose in entering the water remains unclear.”