THE teenage son of an Oxfordshire aristocrat shot himself in the head with his father’s shotgun after splitting from his girlfriend.

Alex Codrington, 16, ended his life in a crop field near Witney in the early hours of the morning after a two-hour phone call to his ex-girlfriend.

His father Sir Christopher Codrington was woken by a call from her father at about 3.20am on July 30.

Alex had taken a 20-gauge Beretta shotgun from his dad’s locked gun cabinet and was threatening to kill himself.

The schoolboy had also left a note in his room at the family home in Fordwells, entitled ‘My Will’.

Yesterday, at an inquest into his son’s death, Sir Christopher, 51, said Alex was a “loving son, and devoted brother” who died tragically.

He said: “He is deeply missed by all of his family, his friends and all of those who knew him.

“His humour, his friendship, and his loyalty is missed by us all and we carry many happy memories of our wonderful, beautiful boy.”

Police sent armed officers and a helicopter to help, but they struggled to find Alex.

He had told his former girlfriend, then also 16, he was in a field by ‘Gypsy Lane’, a name known only by locals.

She, and two police officers, tried to keep him talking from her home in Carterton.

Pc Beth Potter was the last person to speak to Alex on the phone before he shot himself at 5.20am.

She said: “He just kept saying it was all too far gone – that people would not view him in the same way anymore. He kept saying people would think he was nutty.”

On a few occasions the teenager was heard to count down from five to two. Pc Potter added: “I heard a clicking noise at one point, it sounded like the clicking of metal, and within seconds the line went dead and I then heard that he had fired a shot.”

She said she was not trained in negotiations and was surprised she was expected to speak with Alex.

But Supt Jill Simpson, a negotiator at Thames Valley Police, said: “I would expect any police officer to take on that phone call.”

She also said Pc Potter had done better than an experienced negotiator might have done.

The girl ended the 10-month relationship in February last year as she wanted to focus on her school work.

Investigator Zoe Higginson, who interviewed the girl, said: “She very much felt that when Alex was down he was extremely down, and this was something that was known to some of his friends.”

Alex was a pupil at £27,000-a-year Stowe School, in Buckinghamshire, and GCSE exam results published after his death showed he had got the grades needed to study at St Edward’s School, in North Oxford.

At Oxford Coroner’s Court yesterday, Coroner Nicholas Gardiner said Alex took his own life.

He said Alex and the girl had clearly been in a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship which the girl backed down from early last year, thinking, probably, it was too intense.

He said: “Alex probably backed himself into a corner and he felt there was no retreat. I have to conclude that Alex knew perfectly well what he was doing and he had intended to take his own life.”

He said the police were not at all at fault.

A Thames Valley Police’s Professional Standards Department investigation into the tragedy found no one was to blame.