A man was electrocuted after stumbling onto a live rail as he walked home from a nightclub.

Alexander Bain was attempting to take a short cut home on his way back from a night out drinking with friends when tragedy struck.

His girlfriend, Gabriel Egleton, was speaking on the phone with him when it happened and only found out the next day when a train driver hit the 21-year-old's body as it lay on the tracks.

Last night West Sussex coroner Roger Stone called the death "every parent's worst nightmare" and said people walking home from nights out must take extra care after drinking.

Mr Bain had left his family home in Hook Lane, Aldingbourne, near Chichester on October 28, 2006, to meet three friends in Chichester.

They began drinking and later arrived at Thursdays Nightclub on Drayton Lane, east of the city.

The four of them left the club separately and one friend William Cove, 21, told the inquest that he believed Mr Bain was intending to take a taxi back.

However around 2am Miss Egleton spoke to her boyfriend of two years on the phone and realised he was walking through fields to his home, which was around two miles from the club.

She told the inquest: "The phone went silent for about a minute and when he came back on he told me he had tripped over some barbed wire in a field.

"The phone then went dead like he had hung up. I now realise he must have been on the railway line."

Mr Cove had also spoken to the 21-year-old on the phone minutes before his death and said he was in high spirits.

He also only discovered what had happened after a train driver heading east from Portsmouth made the grim discovery around 7am the next day.

The driver applied emergency brakes but was unable to stop in time before hitting Mr Bain's body near Andrews Bridge, Aldingbourne, east of Chichester.

A post mortem examination of the 21-year old's body revealed he had had drunk enough alcohol to put him the equivalent of twice over the legal drink drive limit before he had died of electrocution.

Mr Stone recorded a verdict of accidental death and said: "It is every parents' worst nightmare.

"I don't criticise him for having a drink but I do believe this contributed to the accident."

He added that people must take extra care when walking home from nights out, especially when drunk.

Mr Bain's death is similar to that of young mum Hayley Owen, 22, from Worthing who died after being thrown out of Thursdays nightclub in December 2004.

She fell onto a live rail on the Drayton level crossing and was electrocuted.

It sparked a major campaign by her family to ensure clubbers get home safe.