The groom who fell to his death on his honeymoon was playing a game of hide-and-seek which went tragically wrong, it is claimed.

Brian Orton, 45, and his wife Catherine were on honeymoon in Portugal on July 1 and were walking home from a night out at 2.30am, reports The Daily Mail.

However, after climbing over a low wall to hide and then jump out and surprise his wife he lost his footing and fell around 30 metres to his death, say Portuguese authorities.

Commander Cruz Martins, of Portugal’s Maritime Police, said: “There is no evidence that a crime has been committed and equally there is no reason to treat this death as a suicide.”

The couple, from Bishop Auckland in England, had only been married for ten days and Mr Orton’s body was found 90 minutes after his wife raised the alarm back at their hotel.

One eyewitness, Valter Paiva, told the Daily Mail: “I saw the couple. They were having fun and playing around. The man went on ahead and disappeared."

Portugal’s Maritime Police, who investigated the incident, said they believed Mr Orton jumped over the safety wall to hide but slipped and fell to his death.

A distraught Mrs Orton returned to the UK the following day and said: “I’ll remember those days that we were married for the rest of my life. They were so happy.”

The couple had lived together for a year before marrying but had known each other as children.

“You read it in the papers, you read it in the magazines, you never think it's going to happen to you six days into the honeymoon of a lifetime,” Mrs Orton said.

"All those years when you've had a teenage crush on someone and then you get them and then he's just gone."