A retired doctor slashed his throat after becoming increasingly upset over a minor traffic accident he had been involved in days earlier.

Dr Robert Bowers, 82, a former dermatologist, was found on a scullery floor in a pool of blood at his daughter's home in Latimer Road, Headington, Oxford.

His daughter, Elizabeth Coleridge, who discovered the body, at first believed her father might have suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage and rang the emergency services.

But when paramedics and police arrived, they found Dr Bowers had a four-inch cut on the left side of his neck, and found a bloodied carving knife in a sink nearby. After an intensive investigation of the property, detectives could find no signs of forced entry and were satisfied no third party had been involved, an inquest at Oxford was told yesterday.

Coroner Nicholas Gardiner referred to a statement from Dr Bowers' GP in his home town of Axminster in Devon, who had seen him on February 11, the day after the collision.

The GP noted his patient had been unhurt but "visibly shaken emotionally" by the incident.

Dr Ian Buley, consultant pathologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, who carried out a post mortem, said the wound on Dr Bowers' neck was consistent with a self-inflicted injury made by a sweeping incision with the right hand. Mrs Coleridge said that following the accident, she had gone to pick her father up from Devon and bring him back to Oxford for a short break.

She told the coroner: "He seemed unduly upset by it."

Mr Gardiner offered her family his sympathie.

He added: "I can only record a verdict that he took his own life."