THE family of a young man killed when he was hit by a train have called for measures to stop people getting onto the railway line.

Nathan Coleman, 24, died from multiple traumatic injuries on a pedestrian crossing near Taunton Station, an inquest heard.

His mother, Tracey Baha, said Nathan, a former student at Wiveliscombe’s Kingsmead School, suffered low moods, depression and lack of self-confidence.

He used to take prescription drugs he ordered over the internet from India and drank heavily to ease his anxiety and help him sleep.

Mrs Baha said Nathan was a loving son and brother who visited every weekend and told her and his sister Anya, his best friend, “he would never leave us”.

But in the week before his death on April 12 last year, Nathan was “very low” and took a few days off his job as a porter at the UK Hydrographic Office, in Taunton.

His landlord, Lee Smolden, said he and his wife feared something was going to happen so they tried to follow Nathan after he left his digs in Blackdown Road, Taunton, on the evening of April 12 last year.

He added: “Nathan was swaying and staggering before he went out.

“We went out after him and when I rang him he said he was on a railway line before the phone cut off.

“Soon afterwards there were lots of sirens and a Tannoy announcement from Taunton Station saying all trains were cancelled due to a fatality.”

Nathan’s uncle, John Wills, who said his nephew should have been referred to mental health crisis services, added that he believed Network Rail should take action to prevent the possibility of people getting onto the rail tracks at the site of the tragedy, where there have been two other recent suicides.

He said: “If we owned the area, we’d have a responsibility to look after it – is this any different?”

West Somerset Coroner Michael Rose, who concluded that Nathan’s death was suicide, said he would write to Network Rail asking them to look into the problem, although he pointed out it would be impossible to fence off hundreds of miles of railway lines across the country.

Mr Rose said he was concerned at the ease with which Nathan, who was “much loved and known to so many”, obtained prescriptive drugs.

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