AN ART teacher was found hanging in woods by a passer-by.

Daniel Phipps, 32, hanged himself from a tree in Coney Wood off Mill Road near Patcham, Brighton, last Wednesday.

His body was discovered by a woman who called police, with paramedics also attending.

But Mr Phipps, of Gloucester Place in Brighton, was pronounced dead at the scene, an inquest at Brighton Coroner’s Court was told on Wednesday.

He worked at a school in Crawley.

Dr Mara Quante, a consultant histopathologist at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, gave a provisional cause of death as hanging.

The court heard Mr Phipps may have been in contact with mental health services, so a report is to be processed ahead of the full inquest at Brighton Coroner’s Court on November 12.

Last December, The Argus spoke to Mr Phipps after he contacted us to offer a helping hand to a victim of crime.

We reported that 70-year-old Sue Russell’s house, along with other properties, had been defaced by graffiti vandals in a crime spree.

She was selling her home and said she was going to have to paint over it herself.

Mr Phipps offered to paint her house for free.

He said at the time: “I would love to help.

“I read the story and the thought of someone’s house being targeted is just not nice.

“Tagging is an art when it’s done properly but it doesn’t need to be done on people’s homes.

“I was thinking of any way to help.

“People were talking about what street art is and I thought, ‘I don’t see how that’s going to help anyone’.

“This just seems like a nice thing to do.

“It upsets me how it affects local businesses.

“People don’t just have that kind of money to pull out their pockets.”

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