Bereaved families urge Burnham to order inquiry into ‘suicide grooming’ forum
Standing alongside a survivor of the “appalling suicide grooming forum”, the campaigners said they have endured preventable harm that is “frankly unimaginable”.
The families of those who died by suicide linked to an online forum have urged Andy Burnham to meet with them and grant their request for a public inquiry into “the failures that cost their lives”.
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Standing alongside a survivor of the “appalling suicide grooming forum”, the campaigners said they have endured preventable harm that is “frankly unimaginable”.
The suicide forum, which is not being named in order to prevent further harm, has been linked to at least 164 UK deaths over a five-year period, according to the Molly Rose Foundation, which warned there are “likely to be countless more”.
The forum’s operator was fined £950,000 in May by online safety regulator Ofcom for failing to comply with duties under the Online Safety Act.
It was the first service to be investigated by the regulator under the UK’s online safety laws.
Read more: Jack and Me refuses to sanitise suicide, grief or the people we lose
In July, Ofcom revealed it was unable to take further legal action, stating that changes made by the forum, whose provider is based in the US, blocking access to people in the UK are “the fullest extent of what can be achieved” under the Act.
The regulator said further changes to the site “would impact global users, which is beyond UK jurisdiction”, adding that “all possible legal routes under the Act have now been exhausted”.
The watchdog said that because the forum had already blocked UK users, legal grounds were not met to ask a court to “require internet service providers to block UK access to the site”.
Campaigners at the time said they were “devastated” by the decision and on Thursday they wrote to the Prime Minister to demand an inquiry.
The Families and Survivors to Prevent Online Suicide Harms group (FSPOSH), supported by the Molly Rose Foundation, said: “We write to you today as a group of bereaved families and a survivor of an appalling suicide grooming forum that exists for only one purpose: To groom, coerce and instruct vulnerable people to take their own lives, and to celebrate when those lives end.
“Multiple agencies have failed to act and we live with the consequences of those failures every day. We demand a full public inquiry; nothing less will honour our children, the survivors or expose the failures that cost their lives.”
They told how their loved ones had been “drawn into a dark, nihilistic online world that continues to be easily accessible to this day”.
The campaigners said those who died were not only victims of a “deadly forum and nihilistic criminals, but also the failure of successive governments that acted too slowly to heed warnings – if at all”.
They said repeated opportunities to act had been missed, including prevention of future deaths reports which had raised issues dozens of times with Government departments as well as coroners raising concerns with public bodies some 65 times.
They accused successive governments of having “dithered and delayed the passage of the Online Safety Act”, and said Ofcom had shown itself “to be either unwilling or unable to act with the urgency that was so desperately required”.
They also repeated their outrage at the failure to extradite Canadian national Kenneth Law, whose lethal products are linked to the deaths of 112 people in the UK.
In May, Law pleaded guilty to 14 counts of aiding suicide during a court appearance in Ontario, Canada, but none of those charges related to victims from the UK.
British authorities believed he would have been able to challenge any extradition request due to “double jeopardy” laws – meaning he will have already been convicted of similar offences in another country.
The campaigners’ letter referenced other so-called state “failings” in Grenfell, infected blood and Horizon Post Office scandals as well as Hillsborough.
Citing Mr Burnham’s work with the Hillsborough families during which they said he was “unflinching in your commitment to seeking justice and accountability”, they urged him to “afford us the same”.
Andy Burrows, chief executive of Molly Rose Foundation, said: “The evidence is undeniable and yet this criminal, nihilistic and financially motivated suicide grooming forum is still active and directly responsible for appalling loss of life here in the UK.
“Andy Burnham was unflinching in his commitment to the Hillsborough families to seek justice and accountability.
“He must do the same for these families and survivors, making sure lessons are learned, and that families are afforded the same sense of dignity and a commitment the Government is determined to finally make things right.”
An Ofcom spokesperson said: “We can only take action using the powers we’ve been given and we’re working with Government and Parliament to consider whether there are areas where our powers can be strengthened.”
A Government spokesperson said: “We have met with many bereaved families affected by these issues and know nothing can undo the pain they have suffered.
“It is illegal to encourage and assist suicide or serious self-harm online, and sites promoting this content will face the full force of the law.
“Ofcom’s enforcement action has resulted in the forum blocking access to people in the UK, and we will continue to work with law enforcement partners to intercept harmful substances entering our nation.”