Depressed and suicidal, the former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police sent a text message asking for forgiveness in "another life", as he downed gin and pills.

After his wife discovered his affair with another woman, Mr Todd, 50, surfed internet suicide websites before venturing on to a snowy mountainside in -18C temperatures. There he drank alcohol and took the sleeping drug Nytol.

Possibly hallucinating, he took his clothes off and fell asleep, dying of exposure, the North West Wales coroner, Dewi Pritchard Jones, concluded.

The father of three was found frozen to death the next day, 11 March, at Bwlch Glas, near the summit of Mount Snowdon, following a futile rescue search.

After the hearing, Mrs Todd, 47, said: "In his last e-mail to me Michael said, 'I really am so sorry for all the hurt I have caused you. I just hope you will be able to forgive me at least in part some day'. I have forgiven him, and Michael's family have forgiven him."

He had been confronted by his wife five days earlier after she found out about his infidelity.

He went on to send a series of intimate text messages and e-mails detailing how his life was unravelling in the days and hours before his death.

The coroner concluded that there was not enough evidence to give a definite verdict of suicide or accidental death through misadventure.

Instead, he recorded a narrative verdict, saying: "Mr Todd died of exposure when his state of mind was affected by alcohol, a drug and confusion due to his personal situation."