The award-winning founder of a pioneering eco-energy company killed himself after a council wrongly accused him of stealing £115,000 of government funding, an inquest has heard.
David Green had established the Ecoisland Partnership community interest company (CIC) with the ambitious aim of making the Isle of Wight self-sufficient in terms of energy.
But Green was arrested by Hampshire police after they had received information from the Isle of Wight council claiming that grant money was unaccounted for.
Four days later, and after a front-page article had appeared in the local newspaper about his arrest, Green was found hanging from an oak tree in the garden of his home in Cowes.
His widow, Patricia Green, 59, and younger son, Luke, 29, wept at the hearing in Newport as it was made clear that the allegations made against Green had been unsubstantiated.
Recording a verdict of suicide, Isle of Wight coroner Caroline Sumeray said to Green's family it must have been "horrendous" for them to discover he had been driven to take his own life because of the humiliation of the false allegation. "I can't begin to imagine how you are feeling," the coroner added.
Wiping away tears, Mrs Green said: "It won't bring him back."
Green was named a "Team Green Britain Hero" during the Olympics and his home on the Isle of Wight, which he renovated with environmentally-friendly principles, attracted up to 50 people visiting each month to view his innovations.
Ecoisland was awarded the grant money in January of last year following a successful bid by the Isle of Wight council for Department of Energy and Climate Change funding to help householders on the island reduce their energy bills and to aid businesses to become more environmentally friendly.
Mrs Green, who worked for her husband, said that he was "devastated" by his arrest in October and the following report in the local newspaper.
Speaking of his questioning by police, she said: "David described the experience as the most humiliating and degrading in his life."
She continued: "He was a very honest and honourable man. He said he had overheard someone talking about 'the prisoner' and I think that hit him hard."
Referring to the report in the newspaper of his arrest on suspicion of fraud, Mrs Green said: "He was devastated, I think it was just the first negative thing that he had, it just threw him.
"He said: 'I am not going to be able to walk down the road, I am going to be a pariah.'We [the family] were saying: 'It's a small island, people soon forget.'"
Detective Constable Lee Stewart, of Hampshire police, said that the decision to arrest Green was made after it became known that the Isle of Wight County Press newspaper had received information about the allegation and it was deemed necessary to question him in case an attempt was made to destroy any evidence once the matter was made public.
He said that the false allegations were based on "misinterpretation" of spreadsheets provided by Green to the council. He added of the council's initial allegation: "It wasn't factually incorrect, it was a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation."