Yates fights Hutchence verdict

PAULA YATES said yesterday she was seeking legal advice in a bid to overturn a coroner's verdict of suicide on her lover Michael Hutchence.

Miss Yates, 37, said she refused to accept that the INXS singer committed suicide and said that Hutchence thought it was the most cowardly act in the world. "In no way do I accept the coroner's verdict of suicide," she told Australia's Channel 9 network's 60 Minutes programme. She added that although Hutchence was depressed, their baby Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily was his great reason to live. "He wouldn't have left her - never, never, never, never, never." New South Wales Coroner Derek Hand found in February that Hutchence, 37, committed suicide while in a state of depression, partly over Ms Yates's child custody dispute with Bob Geldof, her former husband. Ms Yates was speaking during a trip to Australia, in which she visited suite 524 at Sydney's Ritz-Carlton Hotel where Hutchence died.