Two cousins from Bridgend, Wales, have been found hanged, bringing the suspected suicide toll among the town’s young people to 16.

Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, was found barely alive on Wednesday and died yesterday when his life-support machine was turned off.

Only a few hours after he was discovered, Kelly Stephenson, 20, was found dead. Her body was suspended from a shower rail.

The latest suspected suicides will increase the intense debate over why the former mining town has such a high number of suicides among young people. All 16 victims who had apparently hanged themselves since January last year were aged between 15 and 27.

Fears of a suicide cult have been dismissed by local politicians and the police. But commentators continue to focus on the use of social networking websites by the victims, claiming that their deaths are glorified on tribute pages.

Nathaniel and Ms Stephenson lived 14 houses apart in Bridgend. Ms Stephenson was friendly with two of the previous victims. The cousins were members of the internet social networking sites Bebo and Facebook. Their friends used the networks to post messages such as “RIP” last night.

Nathaniel, the youngest of the 16 to die, was found in an attic room at the family home in Cefn Glas, Bridgend, police said. After he was taken to hospital his family told Ms Stephenson, who was on holiday with her family in Folkestone, Kent. In the early hours of Valentine’s Day she told a relative that she was going to the bathroom. Her body was discovered later.

Family members said that Ms Stephenson, a keen footballer, was particularly close to her cousin. On her Bebo site she described her biggest fear as “Losing the people I love”.

Writing in the “text-speak” that characterises many Bebo pages, she said: “I just love to live life to the full . . . Always up 4 a laugh and don’t like to takin things to serious! !”

A group has been set up in memory of Ms Stephenson on the website. It includes the message: “A great friend to all, will be sorely missed.”

Tributes were posted on Nathaniel’s Bebo site where he used the nickname Pritch. One said: “What happened m8? Going to miss you. Cannot believed what has happened. there is no better place for you than down here. But I will no now that u r safer up there m*. Sleep tight.”

One friend wrote a message on her own Facebook page saying that she was “very sad and wishes tha Nathaniel and Kelly were here wid us” (sic).

South Wales Police put out a statement again denying any link between the deaths. It said: “We were called to an address in the Cefn Glas area of Bridgend to a report that a 15-year-old boy had harmed himself. He has since died. There is no evidence to suggest this incident is linked to any other incidents in the area.”

Concern about a possible link between suicides and websites has been raised by organisations that include the Internet Watch Foundation. Websites that encourage suicide are not illegal in Britain.

Critics have claimed that social networking sites have not done enough to monitor the e-mail traffic between young people. A spokesman for Bebo said that the company had operated responsibly and was working closely with the authorities to monitor sites. “The loss of any young life is always distressing,” he said.

Philip Walters, the Coroner for Bridgend and the Glamorgan Valleys, said last week that he was concerned about young people committing suicide and wanted an all-Wales strategy to deal with the problem. He did not believe that the recent deaths were connected.

Madeleine Moon, the Labour MP for Bridgend, has called for more money to be spent on trying to halt the rising number of suicides. She told the Commons last week that the town was waiting for lottery funding for suicide-prevention schemes but that the money might not arrive until next year.

Despite the deaths in Bridgend, research by the department of social medicine at the University of Bristol showed this week that suicides among men aged between 15 to 24 in England and Wales have fallen to the lowest level for more than 30 years.

Others who died

2007
Dale Crole, 18, hanged Jan 5
David Dilling, 19, hanged Feb 18
Thomas Davies, 20, hanged Feb 25
Allyn Price, 21, hanged April
James Knight, 26, hanged May 17
Leigh Jenkins, 22, hanged June 3
Zachery Barnes, 17, hanged Aug 11
Jason Williams, 21, hanged Aug 23
Andrew O'Neill, 19, hanged Sept 19
Liam Clarke, 20, hanged Dec 27

2008
Gareth Morgan, 27, hanged Jan
Natasha Randall, 17, hanged Jan 17
Angeline Fuller, 18, hanged Feb 4

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