The town of Bridgend
The former mining town, population 39,000, has struggled to attract new
industries. The claimant count in Bridgend is 9%, the second highest in
Wales, with many on incapacity benefit. Historically, it has had a high
suicide rate and, as a coastal town with high unemployment rates, a high
rate of suicide among young males might be expected.
The deaths
Seventeen suicides in the county borough of Bridgend, population 132,000,
since the beginning of last year. Seven were initially linked as part of a
possible ‘cluster’. Six were not included in this 'cluster' because they
were not known to each other and had clearly identifiable possible motives.
James Knight, 26, hanged himself after breaking up with his girlfriend.
Andrew O’Neill, 19, killed himself after being convicted of drink-driving
and assaulting a police officer. What particularly alarmed the South Wales
Coroner, Philip Walters, about the seven victims was that they knew each
other, gave no reasons and left no notes. Since then there has been the
death of Nathaniel Pritchard on February 13, that police said was not linked
to any of the other deaths, but Kelly Stephenson, found hanged a few hours
later, was his cousin and the two were said to be close. Jenna Parry, 16,
was also thought to know at least one other victim.
The chronology of “the seven” and the deaths that followed
Dale Crole, 18, hanged himself in a derelict warehouse in neighbouring
Porthcrawl on January 5 2007. His friend David Dilling, 19, hanged himself
on February 18. Thomas Davies, 20, who knew both of them, hanged himself in
a park a week later. Zachary Barnes, 17, who hanged himself on August 11, is
also believed to have been known to other victims. In December Liam Clarke,
a friend of Crole, was found hanged in a park. Gareth Morgan, 27, who knew
Clarke, died on January 5 this year. Natasha Randall, 17, posted a tribute
message to Clarke on her Bebo page two days before she hanged herself on
January 17. On February 13 Kelly Stephenson was found hanged a few hours
after her cousin Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, was declared dead following a
suspected suicide. The two cousins were said to be “very close” and on one
of Ms Stephenson’s Bebo pages there were tributes to Clarke, Randall and
Barnes. Jenna Parry, 16, found hanged on the morning of 19 February, was
thought to be a close friend of at least one other victim.
Looking for explanations
A senior social worker who knows the area well told The Times: “These deaths
come out of the blue, without any explanation. It could be a sort of copycat
thing, and the net is a likely target. From the cases I’ve been involved
with it seems that young people are killing themselves as an extreme
reaction to everyday things. They’re not being bullied, they’re not in
high-achieving families where they feel they’ve failed. It’s as though they
do it without expecting any consequences, and that’s hard to understand.”
A case study
Melanie Davies, the mother of Thomas Davies, who hanged himself using a Tarzan
rope that he found on a tree, says: “It was spur of the moment. He didn’t
leave a note. When he went out that morning he said to his brother, ‘Tell
Mammy I’ll see her after’. He’d got his trousers out to go to the funeral of
Dai Dilling [who had killed himself]. He knew him because they’d been at
school together…I said, ‘You wouldn’t do that to me, would you? Kill
yourself like those two boys.’ He said ‘I love you too much for that,
Mammy.’” He was looking for work and was frustrated that his two previous
convictions for threatening behaviour or violence – which she blamed partly
on the way alcohol made him “a different person” - were hampering his
applications. He had lately fallen and banged his head, requiring stitches –
he was worried it would scar: “that might have contributed” she said.
Because of that he did not accompany the family to a wedding; when they
returned he was not home, he died in the early hours of the following day.
The internet effect?
Within hours of the death of Natasha Randall, 17, last Thursday, a site
dedicated to her name appeared on the web, with photographs, poems and
tributes. Six days later, nearly 3000 people had visited. A typical entry
read: “Love you loads your a star && always well be 4eva xx”.
A police spokesman in Bridgend said: "They may think it's cool to have
a memorial website. It may even be a way of achieving prestige among their
peer group."
The South Wales Coroner, Phillip Walters, said last month that he would be
looking “at these networking sites to see if there is a link between them
and the growing number of youngsters committing suicide”. He added: “In the
meantime I want to warn youngsters about the possible dangers these websites
can pose. I would also like to warn parents to be actively on the alert for
signs of their children being influenced by others on these sites."
A Bebo spokesman said last week that the company operated responsibly and was
working closely with the authorities to monitor sites. "We will work
closely with the authorities to provide any assistance which will help them
with their investigations," he said.
What is to be done?
Madeleine Moon, the Labour MP for Bridgend, has called for more money to be
spent on trying to halt the rising number of suicides in her town. She told
the House of Commons that the town was waiting for lottery funding for
suicide-prevention schemes but that the money might not arrive until 2009.
The Ministry of Justice is examining new curbs in the law to stop internet
sites giving out information about different ways of committing suicide.
Three other Whitehall departments — health, culture and children — are all
involved in trying to tackle what the Government describes as a “complex
problem”.
Tanya Bryon, the television parenting guru, who is conducting an independent
review of child safety on the web on behalf of the Government, is to study
evidence on internet suicide as part of her investigation into the risks
from exposure to harmful information.
The pressure group Papyrus is lobbying the Government to amend the law to make
it illegal for internet sites to publish material aimed at aiding suicides.
The national context
There is no evidence of a ‘youth suicide epidemic’ in Britain. Figures show UK
suicides among men aged 15-44 down from a high of 2,951 in 1998 to 2,264 in
2006. The rate of suicides also fell, from 24 deaths per 100,000 young men
to 17.7 per 100,000. Among women aged 15-44, suicides are down from 733 in
1998 to 565 in 2006, with the rate falling from 5.9 deaths to 4.4 per
100,000.
The Welsh context
Suicide rates among men in Wales are currently the highest in the UK. The
Welsh Assembly wants a 10 per cent reduction in suicides by 2012.
The history of 'copycat suicides'
Following the publication of Goethe’s novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers
(The Sorrows of Young Werther) in 1774, there were many reports of young men
shooting themselves, in what was believed to be copies of the death of the
novel’s hero. When academic David Phillips studied copycat suicides in the
early 1970s, he coined the term Werther Effect. Studying suicides in the US
between 1947 and 1968, Phillips found that within two months of a front-page
suicide, an average of 58 more people than usual killed themselves. And
there is also a sharp rise in car crash fatalities and other forms of
disguised suicides. Later studies showed that people were more likely to
copy the behaviour of others if they felt similar to the person they were
copying: it has been argued that social networking sites are a highly
effective means of allowing people to communicate with someone they feel
similar to.
Internet suicides
In August last year Kevin Whitrick, from Wellington, Shropshire, committed
suicide while using a live webcam. Simon Kelly, from Cornwall, was
communicating with others on a suicide chat room right up until the moment
that he killed himself in 2001.
Rosemary Vaux, a spokeswoman for Papyrus, said: "In the United Kingdom
the law specifically bans grooming a child for sex, but it's not illegal to
groom a child for death.” There is no suggestion that this has happened in
Bridgend, however, rather what is feared is the possible “normalising
effect” of the internet.
The view from Japan
Following the world’s first internet suicide pact in Japan in 2003, suicide
sites and forums proliferated. To combat this the has country developed
cyberpatrols, web whistle-blowers and a special online suicide-watch police
division. Software has been created that monitors chatrooms for keywords
that suggest a suicide is imminent. While Japan’s overall suicide rate
remains high, the pandemic of internet suicides has been very effectively
ended.
As someone who grew up in Bridgend I've been perplexed by this whole story; this is not a new problem, I knew people who committed suicide when I was at secondary school (1997-2002). It just seems to me that the London press has finally woken up to the fact that there are problems outside of the English inner-cities. Maybe, with all the publicity, Westminster will finally wake up and realise that South Wales exists, but I doubt it; there aren't many votes to be won there, so the main parties wouldn't consider it to be worth the investment.
James Phillips, Swindon, Wiltshire
sad
Nancy, Stafford, Stafford/Virginia
Do these kids think it's cool to kill them selves & they will get to see each other in the after life or heaven or hell? Don't they realize the pain they leave behind,that someone has to clean up the mess and pick up the pieces.How would they feel if it was there mother or father that did this to them?Once your dead your dead,there is no coming back later,unless your brain dead or wearing diapers for the rest of there life like a friend of mine now does.It's not cool & the in thing to do,it's cruel & selfish & self centered to do this to family & friends.Just think of all there souls in an hell that will go on forever & ever because of there actions,having to live that moment in time over & over again.I'm not talking about the hell with fire & brimstone,I'm talking about being stuck in the frame of mind they were in when they took there life.The body dies but the spirit lives on.It would be an awful thing to be a spirit in pain & agony sufferingfor all time.When your dead your dead.
Nancy, Stafford, Stafford/Virginia
I read about the terrible things that happened in Bridgend in the newspapers today and was extremly shocked about the way young people think about their lifes.They don`t even think about it and when they do, thèy don`t tell anyone .if they are afraid and what is the problem.Is this the mirrow of our young society? Nobody seems to know, that we can find the solutions for ourselfs only in ourselfs, when we try to trust. Everybody has his own problems, but the heart wants to help and so the own problems can never be so important, when a life of a young person can be saved.The way of solving the fears can be started by crying,shouting,talking,painting,writing or just listening to a person whose soul is going to hang in a tree in a .few hours. We must feel the way they feel, without putting a gun against our head, see the solutions, take the hand and walk to the aim.Ia`m not a priest or a teacher or s.th. like that.
Peter Robin, Cloppenburg, Germany/Niedersachsen
People are going to an online tribute page for the Bridgend suicides. The link is below:
www.respectance.com/explore
For Angie Fuller: www.respectance.com/AngieFuller
For Jenna Parry: www.respectance.com/JennaParry
Please visit the tributes.
Mary L., London, United Kingdom
Putting the suicide rate and Internet social networking sites together simply because the teens knew each other and died in similar ways is, I agree, lazy thinking.
However, when you start an investigation you never have the answer right straight off. What we may be looking at here is just a jumping-off point for the investigators to begin from.
Maybe after they investigate the sites, it'll lead to a deeper investigation of the average teen psyche in the town. Maybe these kids did what they did because they were extremely close to one of the others and became depressed, depression has been proven to cause suicide, no?
Anyway, I think it's ridiculous to blame "the Internet." As Neil said before me, if they didn't have Bebo or Facebook, they still have their cells.
Tyson, Belleville, Canada
I think your figures are wrong Carmen. National suicides are 16 per 100,000 annually?. There were over 60 million people in the UK ,of which, 5555 adults( 15 years old+) commited suicide in 2006( National statistics online). This works out at less than 6 people per 100,000. This would mean that there would have to be over 4000 suicides a year ( more than eleven a day) from children the ages 0 - 14 for your statement to be accurate. As I do not know the exact figures in this age group I cannot be sure (does anyone reading this know?) but I presume it is a far far fewer number than this. That's why this is not only a tragic story but also quite a strange one; hence the media coverage!
Mike Robertson, Motherwell,
Linking these deaths with social networking sites is the worse type of lazy thinking. The professionals and the media who have made these damaging comments need to realise you may as well link teen suicide with body piercing or mobile phone ownership. When police officials, social workers and others in positions of responsibility make these ludicrous statements it detracts from the real issues.
There is a huge lack of availability of talking therapies nationwide. Despite constant reiteration and assurance that there are people for these teenagers to talk to, it seems doubtful when the towns MP is talking about waiting for lottery money to fund suicide prevention measures. Now resources will be aimed at investigating networking sites. Public attention has already been diverted away from the pitiful lack of resources for those with emotional difficulties. A situation that shows no immediate signs of improvement, despite government assurances.
Neil, Cardiff,
Carmen - Peterborough
What are you going on about? Ever been to Bridgend or are you just putting two and two together to make five.
There isnt and never was a coal mine in Bridgend and coal mining in the area ceased some 50 years ago. The idea of a close knit 'mining community' ripped apart by mine closures is nonsense.
The rate of suicide in Bridgend is now 17 per 130,000 in over a year. Nationally suicide rates are 16 per 100,000 annually - Bridgend is merely meeting the average for the UK but of course constant media coverage will do nothing to highlight that this tragedy of wasted life occurs across the UK every day.
Paul, London, UK
I can understand the suspicion of the internet's involvment due to the similarities between the deaths of the 7 youngsters; they were all hangings and had no suicide notes which might suggest a pact. However I hope that the internet itself will not be blamed for the deaths if it does become clear that the 7 youngsters did communicate about suicides over the internet and that examination into discussions person to person are not ruled out.
Annie, Hull,
The town of Bridgend
The former mining town(not a former mining town), population 39,000, has struggled to attract new industries(All the new industry went to Bridgend,Ford,Sony). The claimant count in Bridgend is 9%, the second highest in Wales, with many on incapacity benefit. Historically, it has had a high suicide rate and, as a coastal town (10miles from the cost)with high unemployment rates(have a large amount of high quality job and new tech jobs,lower than most parts of valley towns), a high rate of suicide among young males might be expected.
Andrew Nutt, Cardiff, Wales
I went to the bebo page when I read of it in the Times
ed, cardiff,
Please do not treat your readers as if they are idiots. Millions of people use the internet, and lots of them have profiles of Myspace etc. They are simply "social networking" websites, nothing more. The internet is not to blame for people taking their own lives, and I, as a computer engineer who deals with the internet every day, should know this. Also, attempting to monitor peoples activities would not only be a gross invasion of privacy, but would simply never work.
Also, please do not harp on about Tanya Byron and her ridicolous report. Do you think we havn't heard about people blaming video games and the internet for peoples actions before? Its called a Scapegoat!
Tez, Hereford,
The government and industry should spend money in these black spot regions and create jobs and a future for these youngsters. It is no point exporting every manufacturing job to the far east. These 17 youngsters will now not be tax payers for the next 45 years so a little investment now would have saved a lot of misery and heart ache.
Adrian, London , UK
I grew up in Bridgend during the 90's and I can say that suicide was a very common thing to hear about. I can clearly remember 2 other occasions when there were 'clusters' of deaths between friends and they both happened in and around the kenfig hill area. The first was around 1996 and the second around 2004/5. The number wasnt as high as this time but I remember around 10 people all well known to eachother taking their own lives within a short space of time.
Most people in the area could probably name over 10 people who have taken their own lives where-as outside of the area generally people wouldn't know anyone.
It never attracted as much coverage as this time but the fact that this is the third time the area has been hit by a 'wave' of suicides in 10 years has never been been mentioned is very strange.
Its true that its a very bleak part of the world but its no different to many other places along the coast and is certainly better than some of the valley communities.
Eddie, Bridgend, wales
I think many of us feel that we are worthless in this and don't value ourselves enough or appreciate even the small things in life and wonder what we have to give to this life but the question we have to ask is what can this life give to us!
daniela tassa, solihull,
The government has to focus on creating jobs for the people of Bridgend. The place need regeneration if ever it can rise from the feeling of hopelessness and loss of a community of which, once upon a time a thriving, living, mining community. You can't just leave a community to fend for themselves after killing their industry! Every adult in this country has a responsibility for their youths. They need support from all angles of society - government and business sectors aside from their families and the Bridgend community as a whole. This is the point! Tune in to your youths! Help Bridgend!
Carmen A. Davies, Peterborough,
You would swear that Bridgend was in Africa they way it is portrayed
You want real poverty???/ it is not in Pen-y-bont
billy, cardiff, Wales
Stop trying to censor the internet and get to the real issue of why these kids are committing suicide. People have been doing it for years before technology was invented. Why in all your articles are you always trying to link it to the internet - do you think we are dumb?????????!!!!!
sophie, London,
Amazing how the internet and media get blamed for everything. Create law and watch it be ignored, where are these so called professionals in the public sector? They haven't a clue!
steve jones, Cardiff,
*I have been to heaven and I have been to hell. These are states of emotion and I have even considered suicide by hanging. I am middle aged and a major life even made me consider taking my life.
It is my firm and adamant belief, to the point of being in the core of my being, that all things in life are impermantent. This knowledge has ushered me past these dangerous thoughts and I have come out the othere side, where life is good, full of promise and good anticipation. There is a saying that I apply to the almost unbearable periods in my life "This too shall pass". I am not religious in the conventional sense, but heed, you who have thought of taking your lives:
It is a permanent solution to a temprary problem.
No matter what you are going through, if you take your life, you are throwing away some of the best times a human being can have. Don't deprive yourself of the best years of your unique existence.
All things are impermanent inluding the bad times.LIVE!
Martin, LLANELLI, CARMARTHENSHIRE