Mother slams media coverage of Bridgend suicides

by Paul McNally, Brand Republic 20-Feb-08, 09:10

LONDON - The mother of a 15-year-old boy who killed himself in Bridgend, south Wales, has accused the media of glamorising suicide and putting 'an idea into his head'.

Nathaniel Pritchard was the youngest victim of the so-called "Bridgend suicides", a series of youth deaths that has claimed the lives of 17 young people in the south Wales town.

Pritchard died in hospital last week after he was found harming himself at home. His cousin, Kelly Stephenson, hanged herself just hours later.

In a press conference yesterday, Nathaniel's mother Sharon said the media reporting of the spate of suicides had made "an incredibly difficult time even more unbearable".

She told reporters the intense media coverage had been "extremely intrusive" and warned that the press handling of the story could prompt other vulnerable teenagers in the town to try taking their own lives.

She said: "We feel like the media coverage of recent suicides put an idea into Nathaniel's head.

"We feel he was influenced by the media coverage which glamorised ways of taking your life."

Her comments came as another teenager was confirmed dead. The body of 16-year-old Jenna Parry was discovered yesterday by a dog-walker. Her death brings the number of young people to have committed suicide in the south Wales in the past 13 months to 17.

The story of Parry's death made the splash of today's Sun, Mirror, Mail and Times. The Sun also devoted a double-page spread to the story, describing Bridgend in its headline as a place where "the shadow of death stalks the young".

A spokesman for the Press Complaints Commission said it had received "one or two" complaints about press coverage of the suicides, but none had come from people closely connected with the deaths.

"We've not received any complaints from relatives or friends of the young people or from the police," he said.

"We are keen to make people aware of our services. We've made initial contact by email with the police in south Wales."

The spokesman said the PCC would be happy to hear from any of the teenagers' friends or relatives if they wished to come forward and lodge a complaint.

Local police have begun an urgent investigation into the rising death toll, but senior figures in the force are understood to have ruled out a suicide pact or any claims that social networking sites acted as an influence.

Comments

Grace Dunne - 20/02/2008

One of the main ways that the media (and unfortauntely this article) is misrepresenting this case is in referring to Bridgend as a small town. It is a town, but it is also a county borough, and it is in the larger area that the 17 deaths have occured. 'Far from being a village, Bridgend has a population of 39,000, with the town of Pencoed (12,000) effectively a suburb. What's more, of the seven young people whose deaths were originally linked, only one lived in the town. The other six lived in communities in Bridgend county borough (population 132,000), made up of Bridgend, Maesteg and Porthcawl, and the former mining communities of the Garw, Ogmore and Llynfi valleys.' Phillip Irwin, The Guardian, Tues 19 February 2008 Every article that repeats 'small town' further distorts and mythologises this story. Also, according to Phillip Irwin , there were 13 suicides by young people in the Bridgend region in 2007 and a total of 21, and in 2006 the total figure was 28, so, while it is a tragedy that these young people have died ,it is not a sudden phenomenon brought about by 'social networking sites' as the media would love to believe (find me 17 teenagers who aren't on a social entworking site), as I'm sure that would provide easier, more generalisable answers than the more deep-rooted social, economic, emotional and perhaps sometimes unknowable causes of each one of these deaths.