A Teesside great-grandfather died because he was haunted by his suffering in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, according to his family.

On May 3 this year, Cyril Robinson, 82, of Mendip Drive, Redcar died and, at an inquest in Middlesbrough on Tuesday, Teesside coroner Michael Sheffield said he died of bronchal pneumonia and Parkinson's disease.

But Mr Sheffield recorded an open verdict on Mr Robinson's death because he said it was possible the treatment that he had suffered in Japan could have contributed to his ill health.

Mr Robinson's widow, Ivy, and her three sons believe he would still be alive today if it had not been for the barbaric treatment that he received as a prisoner in the Second World War.

Mr Robinson was a 24-year-old soldier when he walked into a Singapore medical centre for help with an ear infection.

He was captured by a passing Japanese truck and bayoneted in the chest.

Then, he was taken to concentration camps in Singapore and Thailand, where he stayed for more than three and a half years.

By the time he was liberated by the American allies, his weight had plummeted from 12 stones to six.

On his return to Britain, he married Ivy in 1952. But Mr Robinson, who suffered from nightmares, told his family very little of the horrors he had witnessed.

For the past 11 years, he has suffered with the debilitating illness, Parkinson's disease, and was nursed at home by his wife.

His youngest son, Leslie said that for his mother to keep part of her husband's war pension the family had to prove that his father's incarceration was the primary cause of his death, and that was impossible.