A mother paid tribute to her A-star student son as an inquest ruled he took his own life while suffering from depression.

North London Coroners Court heard Druew Ashley Tobie, 20, was found hanged in Sturgess Park, Hendon, on the morning of January 5 by a council worker.

When police cordoned off a section of the park, Mr Tobie's mother Sarah noticed the commotion from the family home in Sturgess Avenue.

She immediately thought of her son and went to speak to the emergency services at the scene.

After giving a description of Mr Tobie to paramedics, police officers brought her into the cordon where she identified the body.

However, Mrs Tobie told the court in Barnet today it was strange that no suicide note was ever found.

Crying, she said: "I know my children. He would have written something explaining. He was intelligent enough to do that, he obviously wasn't in his right mind to do what he did.

"He loved life, he loved his girlfriend, his family, he loved people - he was a people person.

"He had the biggest smile, never a sad face on him. It doesn't add up."

She said her son had just woken up one Sunday suffering from a panic attack and they made an appointment to see his GP the next day.

Mr Tobie was known to smoke cannabis regularly and ingest nitrous oxide, but had stopped a couple of weeks prior to the episode because he had begun to experience paranoia and anxiety.

Over the course of a few visits to his GP, Mr Tobie was prescribed medication and referred to a mental health crisis team during the Christmas and New Year holidays.

During an assessment by the crisis team Mr Tobie said he was not in a low mood, he had no previous history as far as the assessor knew of self harming and they found no evidence to suggest he was at risk at that point.

A plan was worked out between the crisis team, Mr Tobie and his mother and he had seemed willing to follow it.

Mrs Tobie said he had been eating more, sleeping better and was less anxious.

Still in shock over her son's death, she told the court: "He was such a confident, intelligent young boy. He had everything going for him. I never agreed with him smoking weed and told him not to.

"He could come to us and talk to us about anything. It was a big shock to us."

Coroner Andrew Walker determined the cause of death was suspension and that Mr Tobie had hanged himself from a tree in Sturgess Park while suffering a depressive illness.

He ruled the 20-year-old's death a consequence of a depressive illness and offered his deepest sympathies to his family.

A Go Fund Me page set up in memory of Mr Tobie, which has raised more than £1,500 for his family, can be viewed at https://www.gofundme.com/ForDruew.