A FORMER policeman has died of cerebral malaria just days after being bitten by a mosquito.

John Nuttall had been working with the United Nations, helping Liberians to rebuild their lives after 14 years of civil war.

Dangerous

Yesterday (Tuesday) his daughter Mary said he had complained in an email of a stomach bug just two days before he died.

"We spoke to him on the Friday, but that was the last we heard from him," she said.

Mr Nuttall, who was 48, was rushed to a hospital in Ghana a day later, but died on the Sunday.

UN officials in New York contacted his next of kin with news of his death.

"We didn't hear until the Tuesday because of the time differences," said Mary, 22, of Manor Park North. "We had just thought he had a 24-hour bug." Mr Nuttall had been helping to disarm an estimated 40,000 former militiamen after a series of bloody battles in the region.

Fourteen years of civil war ended last year when rebels and an interim government signed a peace deal.

Elections are planned for next year, but the UN is still making the area safe.

"We were starting to get used to him going to dangerous places," said daughter Katy.

"He was just someone who wanted to help other people."

Mr Nuttall, formerly of Manor Park North, was cremated in Australia, where he had lived for the past four years.

He had been a regular fisherman in Knutsford and a member of the Builders Arms club.

Yesterday Mary said he had never met his third grandchild Harry.

"He only ever heard him making a lot of noise while he was on the phone to me," she said.