AN INQUEST has opened into the death of a man found dead at a local beauty spot.

Philip Hughes, 42, of Ffordd Las in Cymau, near Hope, was found dead on June 24 in a wooded area of nearby Waun-Y-Llyn Country Park.

At a brief hearing in Ruthin, John Gittins, senior coroner for North Wales East and Central, said police had been alerted to a vehicle left at the top of Hope Mountain, which joins the country park.

Inside the car officers found a phone belonging to Mr Hughes, and conducted a subsequent search of the area whereby they found Mr Hughes hanged in a tree about 800 metres away from his vehicle.

A pathologist's provisional cause of death is hanging, but the matter has been moved to a full inquest at a date to be fixed.