Fears that his ailing wife might have to placed in a nursing home may have triggered behaviour in Mervyn Tussler that led to him being shot dead by police, it has emerged.
Mr Tussler, aged in his 60s, was shot after a woman called police to report a man armed with a gun in Ash Grove in the village of Fernhurst, near Midhurst, West Sussex.
As police continued their investigation into the events that led to the shooting, a close friend of the dead man said he believed the news from social services that his wife Winifred would not be able to return to their home triggered the incident.
Armed police and police dog handlers surrounded the sheltered retirement complex run by Hanover Property Management during a three-hour stand-off.
It ended with Mr Tussler being fatally shot, prompting an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). It emerged that Mr Tussler had held a gun licence and was a member of Headley Park rifle and pistol club.
Investigators remained at the scene conducting house to house inquiries as a private ambulance left the property, believed to be carrying the body of Mr Tussler.
Close friend Peter Goodman, who had known him for four years, said Mr Tussler had been told by social services that his ill wife would have to go into a nursing home.
Mr Tussler, who had been his wife's carer for the past 15 years, was said to be "lost without her" and was upset at the prospect of her moving into a nursing home.
He said that in the past week Mr Tussler was told she was not well enough to return to their home in the retirement block in Ash Grove.
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"He just seemed to be depressed about Win being in hospital," said Mr Goodman. "He was getting deep down and depressed about it and early on this week he had a meeting with social services to determine whether Win could come back home again. It seems that they said she would have to go into a nursing home, which upset him."
