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Sir Nicholas Wall, once Britain's top family law judge, commits suicide after dementia diagnosis

Sir Nicholas Wall, formerly Britain's most senior family law judge, has committed suicide after being diagnosed with dementia, his family has announced.

Sir Nicholas, 71, was appointed President of the Family Division in 2010, but had to retire on health grounds in 2012.

His family placed a notice in today's Times newspaper which said he had "died by his own hand on 17th February 2017".

It added: "After years of suffering, he was recently diagnosed with a rare dementia of the fronto-temporal lobe."

The death notice included a verse from Tennyson's poem Tithonus: "The woods decay, the woods decay and fall/ The vapours weep their burthen to the ground/ Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath/ And after many a summer dies the swan."

Sir Nicholas, who was called to the Bar in 1969, was appointed a High Court Judge in the Family Division in 1993 and to the Court of Appeal and Privy Council in 2004.

He was described by the Family Law Bar Association as "a compassionate judge who thought and cared deeply about the outcome of his cases".

In 2011 he called for co-habiting couples to be given the same legal protection as married couples when they separated, so that the courts could force them to divide their assets equally.

He is survived by his wife Margaret, his children Imogen, Emma, Rosalind and Simon and his grandsons Joshua and Arthur. They asked for donations to be made to the Dementia Research Centre at the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery in London.

Fronto-temporal dementia, which is typically diagnosed in people aged between 45 and 65, is sometimes called Pick's disease and affects the parts of the brain that control behaviour, emotions and language. Its effects include changes in personality and behaviour and difficulties with language.