A JILTED lover plunged a kitchen knife into his stomach and bled to death after his girlfriend said their relationship was over.

After stabbing himself, Wayne Lever calmly put the blade down and said: “It’s all pouring out now”, Bolton Coroner’s Court heard.

Mr Lever, aged 43, was at the house he shared with his girlfriend in Pentland Terrace, Halliwell, when she told him that she no longer wanted to see him.

They had argued the previous night because Mr Lever, an alcoholic, had got out of bed at about 2am and said he was going out.

Miss Downey, also an alcoholic, said she was tired of his behaviour and that they needed to separate because they were making each other’s drink problems worse.

Mr Lever left the house with his friend, Phil Peatfield, who was sleeping on the couch downstairs, and they did not return until the next day, December 3 last year.

The court heard Mr Lever had hoped to reconcile with his girlfriend, but when he tried to speak to her, she told him that she did not want him back.

He then walked into the kitchen, and when Miss Downey followed him, he picked up a kitchen knife from a block on the worktop and stabbed himself.

Miss Downey said: “I went hysterical. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen and I ran all over the house screaming. I think I was in shock.”

Mr Peatfield used a t-shirt to try to stem the blood flow while Miss Downey called an ambulance, but paramedics and doctors at the Royal Bolton Hospital were unable to save him.

Pathologist Dr Naomi Carter said Mr Lever had severed a vein in his abdomen which caused a fatal loss of blood.

Dr Carter told the court that although his wound was not deep, a prominent vein had become enlarged as a natural response to Mr Lever’s alcohol-induced liver disease.

Mr Lever, who worked as a floor screeder until he was made redundant last year, had previously taken overdoses on two occasions.

Recording an open verdict, deputy coroner Alan Walsh said Mr Lever’s actions had probably been a cry for help.

He said: “He was the kind of man who might have inflicted the stab wound to get attention without any intention of harming himself.

“I’m not sure that he intended to take his own life. It may be that he did not realise the seriousness of the wound that was caused by his actions.”