London, July 15 : A 58-year-old man in Hampshire, UK, severed his own head using a chainsaw, after losing an eviction fight.

Police sources have revealed that David Phyall switched on the saw, and put a timer on the socket.

He even had a cocktail of pills to knock himself out, and then rested the saw on his neck.

When the timer went off, the saw sliced through his neck in an instant.

David committed suicide some 10 days ago, and it was his father John who first discovered his body.

Policemen and paramedics who reached the site said that they found David’s blood-soaked corpse.

“What greeted them was a horrific sight. The head was severed and there was a considerable amount of blood. He seemed to have gone into a great amount of detail to end it all,” British tabloid The Sun quoted a Hampshire police source as saying.

The newspaper reported that David had fought for several years to prevent developers bulldozing the block of 72 flats he rented in, and replacing them.

He was last to leave after all the other flats were boarded up in Bishopstoke, Southampton, added the report.

The paper even said that an eviction notice from housing association Atlantic Housing Ltd might have been the last straw.

“We had given him 11 other offers of accommodation but he rejected them, basically because he did not want a property owned by us,” said a spokesman for Atlantic.

Ron Turtle, residents’ association chairman, said: “They offered him several places that were similar but he just didn’t want to move. They had to go to court. It is a very sad situation.”

An inquest into the death was opened at Winchester Coroner’s Court, and adjourned.

Tests were being carried out to see whether the tablets killed him first. (ANI)