Joanne Hargreaves-Doherty lost her 16 year old son to suicide, and warns other parents that their kids may be at risk online.
Through her bereavement charity, Dohertys Destiny, she has arranged for 7 'talking benches' across the Fylde coast to help encourage people to talk - whether to a friend, family member or the Samaritans.
Through her bereavement charity, Dohertys Destiny, she has arranged for 7 'talking benches' across the Fylde coast to help encourage people to talk - whether to a friend, family member or the Samaritans.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 James was 16 years of age, he went to Hodgson High School.
00:04 He owed £400 and he was threatened to pay this £400 and James at the time didn't
00:10 know how to get out of this situation and unfortunately took his own life.
00:15 So did you know that he owed money to somebody?
00:19 No, this came later on.
00:21 After James took his own life, obviously we wanted every stone turning to find out why
00:29 and the reasons for it.
00:32 And basically we got onto his Xbox and on his Xbox there was a threat there that was
00:38 basically saying that James owed some money to some people.
00:41 I had James on Find Your Phone, I did everything that I thought at the time seven years ago
00:46 I could do to find out or know where my children are, what they're doing and so on.
00:50 I think in life now, seven years down, it's even harder because now you've got TikTok,
00:55 you've got Snapchat, you've got a lot more platforms on your computer where you can't
01:00 always see, you can't always find your children or what they're up to, do you know what I
01:03 mean?
01:04 They could use a different name.
01:05 I do think social media has got a very high part to play in suicide, to be fair, I really
01:13 do because like you say, you don't know what conversations they're having, the language
01:18 they're having with other people and if you say something on a phone or even on a text
01:22 message, the message he received on his Facebook gave him, it had a two-day threat around it
01:30 and he died on the second day of that threat so yes, I do believe that that took James
01:35 over the edge.
01:36 The stories I've come across over the last four years at my bereavement group and the
01:40 amount of people that I've spoken to, there's always a different story to James's but they
01:48 were all, could have been rectified, they could have all have been talked about and
01:55 prevented and stopped and to me that's all about talking.
01:59 If you've got a problem, then really you need to talk about it, whatever it is because life
02:03 is too short and a problem should not be a problem to where you take your own life.
02:08 The old-fashioned saying, you know, man put their heads in the sand, no, go and speak
02:12 to somebody, anybody.
02:14 I mean there are helplines out there that you could reach out to, do you know what I
02:17 mean, you've got Mind, young people, you've got Samaritans, you know, there is a list
02:22 of people but if you don't want to go to a professional service, then reach out to a
02:27 friend.
02:28 A friend, do you know what I mean, it's all about talking.
02:30 Talking is the key factor to prevent anything.
02:34 We have just done seven talking benches across the Fowl Coast which we put together after
02:43 the series of Afterlife, which are the talking benches, we got some funding and we thought
02:48 we'd put it back into the community and the seven benches we put across the Fowl Coast,
02:52 some of them are in high risk locations and we've obviously put people's names who are
02:58 bereaved to suicide on them and we've obviously left it with the Samaritans phone number on
03:04 the bottom so that obviously if anybody comes and sits on our benches and want to talk,
03:09 the Samaritans phone number is on there and they are very nice and something which we
03:14 thought was well worth having in the community.