MYSTERY surrounds the death of a charity worker whose body was pulled from a river two months after he disappeared.

An inquest yesterday into the death of 29-year-old Tristan Long, of Hardisty Cloisters, York, ruled out suicide.

Coroner Geoff Fell said no-one would ever know how and why he came to be in the River Nidd at Cattal, near Wetherby, in North Yorkshire.

Mr Fell, who recorded an open verdict, said Mr Long had been reported missing by his father, Andrew Long, on April 16.

Mr Long's neighbours had spoken of music playing at his home in York on April 14.

He had bought three shirts from a York menswear shop the following day.

He also lunched with a colleague, who later described him as being paranoid and not his usual self.

Mr Long's white Skoda car was found the next day at Walshford, not far from the spot where his body was pulled from the river, on June 12.

In the meantime, police had learnt that Mr Long had bought tickets to fly from Heathrow to the US on May 25, then on to Costa Rica and Colombia to where he had sent an e-mail to a former colleague telling her he would visit on May 30.

The flight tickets had never been used and nor had Mr Long's bank account after April 16.

But he spent £175 in a Catterick Garrison supermarket that day.

Mr Fell said Mr Long's purchase of flight tickets, shirts and the supermarket items were not the actions of a man who intended to take his own life.

The coroner added: "The other problem I have is that I really don't know how or why Tristan ended up in the River Nidd. He might have been sitting there and slipped. It is possible he just fell in because the river was in flood at that time."