Emma Walton (centre) and Vicky Horgan (r) were shot at a BBQ

Stuart Horgan, 39, from Plaistow, London, was on remand at HMP Woodhill, in Buckinghamshire, in June 2004.

He had been charged with shooting dead his wife and sister-in-law at a family barbecue, in front of his wife's two children, in Oxfordshire, days earlier.

The jury sitting at Milton Keynes Civic Offices heard that he had convinced prison staff he was not a suicide risk.

Vicky Horgan, 27, and her sister Emma Walton, 25, were gunned down the barbeque, in Highmoor Cross, on 6 June 2004.

Their mother, Jacqueline Bailey, was also seriously injured in the attack, which took place in front of Ms Horgan's two daughters, aged four and seven - the youngest of whom is Horgan's.

Alcohol addiction

On 20 June 2004, Father's Day, alcoholic bricklayer Horgan was found dead under the bed in his cell after slashing himself with blades broken out of razors given to him by prison staff.

His head was suspended by a shoe lace ligature tied to the underside of the bed frame.

Four days earlier, he had been taken off suicide watch after prison medics decided he was no longer a serious suicide risk.

But the jury heard how Horgan had asked a fellow inmate for advice on how to kill himself the day before he died.

Horgan died while on remand for the murders at Woodhill Prison

Horgan was arrested the day after the shooting near a pub in Peterborough and remanded into custody to Bullingdon prison, Oxfordshire.

Staff there believed Horgan, who had a 15-pint a day alcohol addiction, posed a risk of self-harm and put him on 24-hour watch, the inquest heard.

Three days later he was transferred to Woodhill prison where he was assessed and found to be "upbeat".

He was taken off suicide watch on 16 June and four days later he took his own life.

Stephen Simblet, a lawyer acting for Horgan's mother Sandra, argued that there were conflicting assessments of his state of mind after his arrest and that he should have been monitored more carefully.

But the jury rejected Mr Simblet's argument and returned a verdict of suicide giving the cause of death as self-inflicted incised wounds to the neck and hanging.