Schoolgirl's hanging may have been 'cry for help', says coroner (From Bury Times)

Schoolgirl's hanging may have been 'cry for help', says coroner

5:26pm Wednesday 20th March 2013 in News

A 14-year-old girl who hanged herself at her father’s home in Hawkshaw could have meant it as a cry for help, an inquest heard.

Jade Stringer had been struggling to cope with ‘boyfriend issues’, but her parents saw these as normal teenage problems and were trying to help her, the hearing was told on Tuesday.

A verdict of death by misadventure was recorded by the coroner.

The inquest heard how she had been left ‘sulking’ in her bedroom on June 10 last year following an argument with her dad about her mobile phone.

When father David Stringer returned from the garden of their home in Bolton Road about half an hour later, he found Jade hanging.

He tried to revive Jade using CPR before paramedics took Jade to Fairfield Hospital, but her condition deteriorated and she died six days later.

Mr Stringer said Jade had been grounded after getting involved with ‘some lad who we didn’t think much of’.

He said: “There was one incident where she was taken back to her auntie’s by the police. We actually grounded her for that because she was drunk.

“This boy had apparently hit her and assaulted her so we got the police involved.”

Mr Stringer said he had also confiscated Jade’s mobile phone as he did not want the boy to contact her while the police were investigating.

He said: “We told her she could have her phone back on the condition we could check it and make sure this lad hadn’t sent her any messages threatening her or anything.

“She was in a sulky state and didn’t want me to switch the phone on, so it was a bit of a stand-off.

“When she didn’t get her own way she could have a sulk and I just thought that was what she was doing.”

Mum Natalie Ingoe said Jade, a pupil at Haslingden High School, had been a happy and popular child, but she became concerned in 2011 when her daughter started going out more and became involved with an older boy, although they split after a few months.

Jade did not like being confronted about the older boyfriend, but started getting on better with her mum when she moved into her dad’s home in early 2012, the inquest in Rochdale heard.

Around this time she became upset by some text messages she had been sent by some boys, but Mr Stringer said: “We’d all spoken about it together with Jade.

“She seemed to realise why we were worried about certain things and understood we just wanted to talk about it and come to a solution.

“We thought it was normal teenage behaviour. She had one or two issues with boyfriends and things like that but nothing you’d think would be major.”

Lisa Hashmi, assistant deputy coroner for Greater Manchester (North), said: “I can’t be sure on the evidence I have heard it was not simply another cry for help or call for attention, knowing there were others present in the family home at the time and the potential she would or could have been found at any moment.

“She’d had an open and honest relationship with her parents in relation to her difficulties. I’ve also heard evidence she was looking to the future, both immediate and long term.

“There had been no indication that Jade would self-harm.

“We can’t be sure she intended to take her own life. I therefore discount that as a verdict.”

Recording the verdict of misadventure, she told Jade’s parents: “It was an impossible situation that you found yourself in. While such a loss will never go away I do hope the conclusion will allow you the ability to move on and cope with the loss.”