Independent UK: Doctor killed himself after mother asked him to seek 'gay cure'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/doctor-killed-himself-after-mother-asked-him-to-seek-gay-cure-9907249.html
FRIDAY 05 DECEMBER 2014 by Matt Watts

A Harley Street doctor killed himself by jumping from his luxury penthouse apartment after his mother asked him to seek “a cure” for being gay, an inquest heard.

Dr Nazim Mahmood, fell four storeys to his death from the balcony of his £700,000 flat in a mansion block in West Hampstead, London, in July.

An inquest at St Pancras Coroners’ Court heard Dr Mahmood had told his mother he was gay and was in a 13-year relationship with his fiancée, Matthew Ogston, just days before his death.

The court heard Dr Mahmood had kept his sexuality secret from his Muslim family in Birmingham, fearing they would refuse to accept it on religious and cultural grounds.

But having returned to the family home to celebrate Eid, the 34-year-old revealed his sexuality after his mother asked him if he was gay, the court heard.

Mr Ogston, who lived at the penthouse flat with Dr Mahmood, told the inquest yesterday: “She had suggested to him he needed to see a psychiatrist to see if he could be cured. Together I think they agreed they would get through it.

“Telling someone they needed to be cured would not be the easiest thing to take.”

The court heard that Dr Mahmood, who had never suffered from depression or any other mental illness, had taken drugs mephedrone and ketamine shortly before his death.

Dr Mahmood was a GP who also ran Face Clinic London – a chain of medical clinics which he co-founded in 2009,providing wrinkle treatments such as Botox and chemical peels.

Mr Ogston wept in court as he told of his love for Dr Mahmood, describing him as his “soulmate” and insisting his fiancé had given no indication of any intention to kill himself.

“He always wanted to help other people, always put other people first and wanted to care for people,” Mr Ogston told the coroner. “He was quite simply the most amazing man I’ll ever meet in my whole life.”

The coroner, Mary Hassell, ruled that Dr Mahmood took his own life. She said: “It seems incredible that a young man with so much going for him could have taken his own life.

“But what I’ve heard is that he had one great sadness which was the difficulty his family had in accepting his sexuality.

“It seems desperately sad that in 2014 a person should feel that they can’t be accepted because of the way that they live and I can only feel the deepest sympathy for Nazim that he felt so sad and desperate.”