TWO strangers who gassed themselves in a car had formed a suicide pact' after meeting on the internet, an inquest heard.

Jenny Spain, a teacher in Enfield, is thought to have met nurse Mark Searle on a suicide forum just three weeks before killing themselves in Chalfont St Giles.

The pair were found by a dog walker inside a Ford Ka in Bottrells Lane on February 22. Several chemical hazard signs were stuck to the car.

Mr Searle, 37, from Hailsham in East Sussex, suffered from bi-polar disorder but his wife, Emma Sandalls, said she knew nothing of the “pact”.

She said she had last seen him the previous day, when they had met for coffee in London, and was expecting him home that night.

Miss Spain, 23, who worked at Chace Community College in Churchbury Lane, Enfield, and lived with her parents in Deptford, south London, had suffered from depression. But her father, Christopher, said her death had come as a “dreadful shock”.

Records of contact between the pair suggested they formed a joint decision to commit suicide, while Mr Searle knew the Bucks area from a previous job, the coroner was told.

Emergency services cordoned off an area of about half a mile around the car when they arrived on the scene at about 9am.

Coroner Richard Hulett said: “These individuals came to know each other, to my mind morbidly, on a site for people who are interested in things like suicide.

“This method was decided upon and the parties I think more or less with equal apprehension and determination decided on this.”

He returned a verdict that both took their own life.