A TODDLER tried in vain to fend off his drunken, depressed father in a frenzied knife attack that killed him, an inquest heard on Wednesday.

Nathan Tamar, who was just 14 months old, had small wounds to his hands which the pathologist described as something people would make trying to protect themselves.

His father Robert Tamar had sought treatment for depression, and was prescribed anti-depressants that he was not taking at the time.

He was more than three times above the drink-drive limit at the time of the incident, the court was told.

The court heard that Nathan's mother, 40-year-old Rachel Jones, met Robert 12 years earlier, while both were chefs at Winchester College.

But, she added, that as his drinking got worse, so too did their relationship.

She eventually separated from him in July this year, though they kept on friendly terms for Nathan's sake.

Asked to describe what happened on the fateful day, Miss Jones said she had gone round to the flat at Fivefields Road, Highcliffe, at about 4.30pm, to drop Nathan off as planned.

But when she arrived Robert was not talking to her.

An argument broke out about him caring for Nathan that night, and then as she was leaving, out of the blue, he punched her on the jaw.

She said: "I was terrified, and I just feared for my life."

She said he then picked up a hammer and tried to strike her with that as well, while still holding Nathan, but that she managed to push past him and get onto the street with Tamar following her.

She said: "He said to me you are dead Rachel', and then disappeared back into the house."

She said that when he then returned outside he had a knife, but by this stage she was on the phone to the police, and went to seek refuge in a neighbour's house.

She said: "I had never known him to be violent before."

Officers quickly arrived on the scene, but by the time they got into the house, Mr Tamar had already attacked his defenceless son, and left him to bleed to death on a sofa from knife wounds to the chest and abdomen. He was found in his babygrow.

The 58-year-old ex-soldier, also known as Mokhtar Tamar, had stabbed himself once through the heart before collapsing on the floor.

Emergency services rushed the pair in separate ambulances to the the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester, but despite medical efforts to revive them, neither recovered and they were pronounced dead shortly after arriving.

Those present at the Central Hampshire Coroner's Court in Winchester heard how it will never be known exactly what prompted Mr Tamar to carry out the attack.

The deaths on August 31 sent shock waves around the Highcliffe community, with scores of mourners turning out for the little boy's funeral.

Nathan's mother, a chef at Winchester College, is understood to have gone through months of counselling.

After the tragedy, she described her son as a "cheeky and happy baby boy".

Pathologist Hugh White said Nathan had seven injuries in total, the most serious were wounds to his abdomen and chest.

Robert had six wounds to the chest and two to the abdomen. Two had pierced his heart.

Coroner Grahame Short recorded verdicts of unlawful killing on Nathan, and suicide on Robert.