COLLEAGUES say they are mystified at the suicide of “an extremely talented” physicist.

Dr Christoph Gabor, 41, of The Hyde, Abingdon, hanged himself at his home, Oxfordshire Assistant Coroner Nicholas Graham ruled on Tuesday.

The scientist had written down website references with instructions on how to tie a noose in a rope, the inquest heard.

Dr Gabor’s body was found by his landlord, Edmund Aldworth, on Tuesday, June 24.

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Dr Dan Faircloth, a colleague at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), at Harwell Oxford in Chilton, told Oxfordshire Coroners’ Court: “He was frustrated with how things were going, but I never thought he would do what he did.”

Dr Faircloth, an accelerator engineer, was one of several colleagues who raised the alarm with the landlord on June 24 after Dr Gabor, also an accelerator physicist, had failed to turn up to work since June 19.

A German national, Dr Gabor had worked at the laboratory, one of the UK’s major scientific centres, since 2006. He had no family in the UK.

After the hearing, Dr Faircloth told the Oxford Mail that Dr Gabor was “a very thoughtful and caring person,” who had done volunteer work with disabled children in Germany.

A keen cyclist and marathon runner, he was also very fit.

However, Dr Faircloth said, Dr Gabor “would also take things personally” at work.

Another colleague, accelerator physicist Dr Ciprian Plostinar, told the court Dr Gabor was “a hard-working guy” but that he “stopped coming to lunch with us”.

Dr Plostinar added: “He was quite negative but that’s the way he was anyway.”

Dr Plostinar was aware that he had been applying for other jobs.

Dr Gabor was developing ways of measuring the shape of a particle beam in a particle accelerator, which uses electromagnetic fields to send charged particles at ultra-fast speeds.

The research is often used for industry and medicine.

His work had been applied at CERN, the world’s biggest particle physics lab, in Switzerland, said Dr Plostinar.

RAL staff were “deeply shocked” at his death, said an obituary on the Science and Technology Facilities Council website.

Dr Gabor was a “highly effective member” of the research team who “was making a name for himself in the international community” through his published papers and attendance at conferences, said the obituary.

Mr Graham described Dr Gabor as “an extremely talented man” adding: “The indication [is] that he had been researching methods to do that and his notes gave the indication he was planning to do that and had the intention of doing that,” said the assistant coroner.

Personal notes “clearly show that Dr Gabor was not in a fit mental state”, said Mr Graham.

Mr Graham recorded a verdict of suicide