A Royal Navy psychiatrist has admitted he “got it wrong” in assessing the suicide risk posed by a special forces soldier days before he killed himself.

Surgeon Captain John Sharpley met Corporal Alexander Tostevin to assess him four days before he died in March 2018.

The 28-year-old, who was a member of the Special Boat Service, was left alone in his flat in Poole, Dorset, on the weekend he died with just a list of phone numbers for support.

He had been on restricted duties and was facing disciplinary action following an incident the previous September when he had gone absent without leave and used a military credit card to buy cocaine and hire a prostitute in London.

Capt Sharpley told the inquest in Bournemouth he had drawn up a care plan for Cpl Tostevin, which included a family friend staying with him.

But unknown to him, the friend had returned home to London three days before the Royal Marine, from Guernsey, killed himself.

The hearing heard that Cpl Tostevin had gathered various suicide methods in the week before his death, but had got rid of them before the appointment with Capt Sharpley.

Brendan Allen, the Dorset area coroner, asked the witness: “Why did you think the risk of suicide was not overly raised when you saw Alex on March 14?”

Referring to his notes of that meeting, Capt Sharpley replied: “I agree it looks as though it is not raised but that’s not what I mean by that.

“Lower down I have put his self-harm risk was moderate, which is one below high, and high means admission.

“What I am really saying there is the risk is not sufficient for hospitalisation. I don’t recall the exact conversation we had, and this is an area of difficulty for me as I have not recorded it in this consultation what his suicidal ideation was at the time I saw him.

“It is my impression that he was saying he was not suicidal and that he had made efforts to get rid of the various things he had been planning with earlier in the week.

“The other thing affecting my thinking was that he had agreed to the plan of care we had discussed with the possibility of his bipolar illness, and he was agreeing to see the community psychiatric nurse and to see me in my clinic on March 28.

“That led me to believe that he didn’t need to be forced into hospital.”

He said Cpl Tostevin’s friend being there was “one factor” in not admitting him to hospital that day.

The court heard that after Cpl Tostevin died, Capt Sharpley met his family.

Kirsten Heaven, counsel representing the Tostevin family, asked: “Did you say to the family you had got it wrong?”

Capt Sharpley replied: “I think I might have done. On the Wednesday I made a judgment that he was fit to go home with various interventions in place. I got that wrong.”

Ms Heaven asked: “So you are not saying that with the benefit of hindsight you got that wrong, you are saying you got that wrong?”

Capt Sharpley replied: “I think it is with the benefit of hindsight.”

The inquest heard the psychiatrist had first met Cpl Tostevin the previous year after the incident in London.

He agreed with a community psychiatric nurse that the serviceman was suffering an adjustment disorder, due to the stress of a court case earlier that year where he was accused of assault.

“I felt at the time that he had symptoms of a duration in relation to the stressors of his court case and fine and debt accrual,” Capt Sharpley said.

“The stressors had been somewhat lifted by the time I saw him. His finances were being managed and his unit was being very supportive, and his symptoms had alleviated a lot.

“I felt that that was the hallmark of an adjustment disorder.”

Ms Heaven said that by September 2017 Cpl Tostevin was telling the psychiatric nurse that after the tour to Afghanistan in 2010 he was “living on borrowed time” and engaging in risky behaviour, such as using prostitutes, taking drugs and drinking excessively.

Asked about his knowledge of this, Capt Sharpley said: “I got it wrong in that I had the impression that things had started after his court case and it was recorded in the community psychiatric nurse’s document that it started after 2010.”

Ms Heaven asked: “Do you think looking at it now that you might have just missed the spending starting much earlier and the debt started much earlier, potentially from 2010 onwards?”

The witness replied: “It certainly looks that way.”

The hearing continues.