19 mars 2009
Mr TimFuller (père de victime)
Q276 Chairman: Mr Fuller, good morning. We have been hearing from Anthony Langan of the Samaritans. Would it be all right if he continued to stay?
Mr Fuller: Yes.
Chairman: Can I thank you very much for coming to talk to the Committee this morning. As you know, we are conducting an inquiry into the general standards of the press and privacy intrusion. We have focused particularly on what happened in Bridgend and the way it was reported and we would be very keen to hear from you. Can I express, on behalf of the whole of the Committee, our sympathy with your loss?
Q277 Rosemary McKenna: Good morning, Mr Fuller and thank you again. Could you describe to us the interaction that you had with the media, with the press, following your daughter's death?
Mr Fuller: I have been reviewing the whole process on the way down because there is more than just what happened after the article. If I analyse the whole scenario, it started on the day I went down to Bridgend. I live in Derbyshire and I went down to Bridgend to see the police and identify Angeline and so forth. The press were waiting to get the story out. I went the day after she died so the press were keen to get the details of who it was, where it was and get the address. The Coroner was very good, very accommodating, and would not release that information until after he spent time with myself. It was at the end of that session with the police when that was wrapped up and I was ready to go home the police and the Coroner let me know that they had released the details of the name and address of my daughter and advised that unless I could handle it not to go anywhere near the address because there were cameras and press and all sorts there. At the time I was OK with it. It had been a long hard day and I was ready to get back. I had children at home being looked after that I wanted to get back to. It did block that opportunity to go back perhaps to the scene if I felt that way. In hindsight I wondered why I did not do it. Would I have done it given the opportunity? Probably on the day I would not have done but on reflection for other people as well the fact that all that was going on there if you really felt you wanted to go and have look at what happened, maybe pick up one or two things, I was really advised that unless I could handle people coming for information that would not be a good idea. That is where it started. I was told that the press and the media were free to release that information and report on it and were likely to do so very soon. One thing I found was I was frantically making phone calls to people that perhaps I would not speak to for two or three days. Maybe if they put the news on and they have children they would pick the papers up the next morning and they would see all this information. I felt I wanted to let them know myself rather than seeing it firsthand in the media. I was put under pressure there. It took away from me the opportunity to let people know what had happened. I am not saying it should not have been reported on but that is the effect it had. I was forced into a panic situation. A close family member and myself spent a few hours on the internet that evening looking at all the newspaper sites to see what they were saying. We discovered one of them had a front page feature so first thing in the morning there were one or two people I needed to let know straight away because on the way to work they would see this and buy a paper and they would be faced with this. It put a lot of pressure on me. I understand the way the media needs to work. There is no point reporting something that happened a week ago as it is old news but it had an effect on me.
Q278 Rosemary McKenna: Do you think the Coroner's office could have kept that information for another day? Would that have been helpful?
Mr Fuller: It would have been useful from my perspective. I do not know if that is fair on the media to do that. In perspective, if it happened somewhere else in the country there would not have been this great interest but it was because it was Bridgend. She had not been there long. She had lived there about 18 months so in a way she was an outsider. As soon as I heard what had happened it did not take me long to realise she is in Bridgend and it will be everywhere which it was in a short time. It was because of the magnitude of the story and the history that what was actually a detached case became part of a growing story.
Q279 Rosemary McKenna: Did the press speak to you?
Mr Fuller: No. The police asked me if I wanted the statement issued from them and for the press to stay away and they did that and nobody contacted me. We did not get any intrusion. Somebody knocked on my door the next evening and we were sure at the time that he was an Express reporter but on reflection he could have been from the Stockport Express. A few months before I had set up my own company so I am prepared to accept that in the heat of the moment I may have sent him away saying he should not be there. I cannot say. I may have had a Daily Express reporter on the doorstep but it may have been coincidence that somebody did turn up. Aside from that I rang the police liaison and they said if somebody approaches you from the press and you ask them to leave because they should not be there and they go there is nothing more that can be done. They cannot pursue it. I did not have any more interaction with the press apart from the fact that whenever anything else happened in Bridgend the whole story was related again. I think the meeting was called in Bridgend. I was invited to attend a meeting with the PCC but because of the distance and taking a whole day out from what I could cover in 15 minutes at the time I wrote to Steve Abell at the Press Complaints Commission. I did not attend the meeting. I had some feedback from that and he asked me for a statement to forward to the newspaper. I have brought it with me. If you want any of the paperwork I am quite happy for you to have a copy of what I said to Steve Abell which he passed on to the Daily Express. Through him they apologised for certain content and the way it was reported although they do not feel that they overstepped any lines. Aside from that I have not had any major problems. It is just the issue of the way it has left me feeling for myself and the empathy I feel for other families. A few weeks after Angeline's death—I cannot remember all the details—there was a girl who died. I am not sure if she fell from a balcony or what the circumstances were but it was believed she was bullied or something. She was a lovely girl and her picture was on the front page of the newspaper. To me I did not need to see the picture. She was a lovely girl and it made the story. If they had said this had happened and the tragic circumstances and she is dead, that for me, as a non-family member and not knowing this girl, that would have been sufficient. I knew at that point, because of what I had been through, all her family and close friends would be seeing their daughter and knowing their daughter's picture was in millions of households of total strangers up and down the country. It was the front page as well which is really what exacerbates it. I mentioned in my letter to Mr Abell that just about every newspaper carried the report on Angeline's death from the small ones to the broadsheets but they were contained inside. It was only the Daily Express that had the front page article.
Mr Anthony Langan
Q227 Chairman: Can I thank you very much for coming and giving evidence. This is, as I think you know, a session that we are holding entirely in private particularly for the benefit of Mr Fuller who will be coming after you. It is part of a wider inquiry we are doing in the whole area of press standards, privacy and libel. Obviously the reporting of suicides is a particularly difficult and sensitive area and the lessons from Bridgend are ones we are keen to hear. Could you start by giving us an overview, on behalf of the Samaritans, as to how you see the media's treatment of the question of reporting suicides?
Mr Langan: The Samaritans, as the Committee will know, is an organisation dedicated to reducing suicide. We have worked with individuals since 1953, some years before suicide was decriminalised, so we were actually working with people who were potentially criminal before the 1961 Act. We have also worked very closely with the media; in fact the name Samaritans came from the Daily Mirror who gave us the name. We have always been very keen to work with the media because as an organisation with limited resources we value the role of the media in telling people about our service. In 1991 we published our first media guidelines which some of the Committee may know and, for the record, can be found at www.samaritans.org/media. We have used the media guidelines with policy makers and regulators. Significantly, as the Committee may know, in 2005 we managed to secure a change in the PCC's Code of Practice to include a new clause, 5(ii), on the reporting of suicide. In the light of what happened in Bridgend, I think appropriate reporting and the impact that has on vulnerable people and copy cat suicides were issues we had to address very quickly. In terms of where we were, to briefly get this out, we began in a situation where we felt some of the media stories were damaging, probably counter-productive and through interventions from ourselves and from members of this House we were able to work with the PCC and editors quite quickly to address some of those concerns. At this stage in the process we still need to keep working with the PCC and probably with the Code Committee to look at how that Code works and whether we can do some extension to that remit. That is where we are at the minute.
Q228 Rosemary McKenna: Talking about the PCC Code, does it give enough guidance on the issues surrounding suicide reporting?
Mr Langan: In itself I do not think it does. One of the things that Bridgend threw up is within the remit of the PCC a lot of things fall outside that Code. There were particular issues around the re-publication and duplication of photographs. The new Editor's Codebook talks about dramatisation of suicide and I think it is equally dangerous to look at the normalisation of suicide. When we looked at the regular re-publication of 10 or 20 photographs of people of a certain age then other people of that age would see perhaps a pattern of normalisation and that was equally dangerous. The current Code does not address that. We think the guidance note behind that could do with some work but we see the Code of Conduct as a working document. We want to keep working with the PCC and the Code Committee to extend that remit so it is actually going to go further.
Q229 Rosemary McKenna: There is a question about their expertise. Do you think they have the necessary expertise to adjudicate on the reporting of the suicide cases that we have seen?
Mr Langan: I am not familiar with that conversation I have to say. In our dealings with the PCC what they have always stressed to us is they are not of the media, they are separate to the media, and in that respect they have the ability to look across the piece. I do not feel qualified to talk about their expertise.
Rosemary McKenna: It is a very specific area and they really ought to have some kind of expertise.
Q230 Chairman: That suggestion was specifically raised with us by PAPYRUS. Are you familiar with them and would you think they are probably pretty good advocates?
Mr Langan: We work very closely with PAPYRUS. In terms of Bridgend, I know PAPYRUS said that they initiated a principle of not speaking to the press. We decided to work differently in that respect. In our view, we felt it was important to make sure that the objective we were getting across was, first of all, to make sure that people were looking at this properly and were not picking up on some of the slightly less evidence-based conclusions that were being drawn about why these suicides were taking place. There were discussions around internet death cults and other things and that have never been proven. Again, to refer to some of the previous witnesses' evidence, we felt there was a potential that if the press were not being spoken to, then stories would go ahead based on limited sets of information ***. We do work very closely with PAPYRUS and we continue to do so. I am not familiar with the argument about the question of expertise. In terms of our own work, once the PCC got involved we found them very helpful.
Q231 Rosemary McKenna: Did they come to you for advice?
Mr Langan: Since Bridgend they have come back to us. My invitation here today has been somewhat helped by the PCC. I have also worked with them on delivering a seminar to students at the LSE and academics there on the politics of talking about suicide in the media so it is a developing professional relationship.
Q232 Mr Hall: Reporting on these issues is quite a difficult thing because it is a very personal tragedy for the families yet there is quite a lot of public interest. What do you think of the press coverage that surrounded the Bridgend suicides?
Mr Langan: As I mentioned earlier, some of the initial stories did cause us concern. When we began to look at these we realised ourselves that in terms of complaining to the PCC they were outside their remit. *** We would contact the papers to actually talk about our concerns, about how things were not being represented. Our focus at that stage was to talk to the papers locally to see what we could sort out. If you look at the PCC, and I have been thinking about this quite a lot, in terms of the change that Samaritans would want to see, the PCC is able to make a level of redress but again, as other witnesses have said, once the story is out there it is out there. We are looking now at how we can actually *** help in the development of those codes. It is more important that we are preventing future deaths and preventing inappropriate reporting.
Q233 Mr Hall: You said you had concerns and they were reported outside the remit. Could you be slightly more specific about what the concerns were and where they had gone beyond the remit?
Mr Langan: Probably in the duplication of those photographs. Early on a number of papers, and it is difficult for me to remember the names now, would publish either a front page or a double page spread and around the perimeter of the page you would see the photographs of the young people. Again, because it was developing a picture of a youth group, potentially looking at suicide as a normal life choice, we thought that was potentially dangerous.
Q234 Mr Hall: Did you think it contributed to further suicides?
Mr Langan: It is a difficult question to answer. Any view of suicide and suicide research is a long-term issue. It is only now that some of the researchers, particularly Professor Keith Hawton at Oxford, are beginning to look at that. I know there is some work taking place in Wales as well to look at media and whether that has had an impact ***
Q235 Mr Hall: Am I right in thinking there is no protection against the names of people who have committed suicide being reported?
Mr Langan: I am not a legal expert but I do not believe there is a privacy law for the dead as such.
Q236 Mr Hall: Would that help?
Mr Langan: I am not an expert on these things. It is difficult to say. What Samaritans wanted to see in this situation was a discussion around the issue that was positive and useful.*** Though it is not a crime, because suicide is not a crime, it is often stigmatized. ***
Mr Hall: For juveniles there is a lot of protection in the press if you are alive with loads of restrictions on reporting but the minute you are dead there is not.
Q237 Helen Southworth: Following on from what Mike was asking but slightly sideways, can I ask you about the impact on families and your experience at the Samaritans of the impact on families of somebody who has committed suicide generally? Do you have an opinion on whether newspapers should have to seek the consent of a next of kin before they publish photographs and details of somebody who has committed suicide? There is an issue around intrusion and privacy of somebody who is the closest relative who must be feeling very considerable grief and possibly guilt and anxieties around the fact that they themselves have not been able to do anything to prevent it.
Mr Langan: In terms of the issue around next of kin, it is a difficult one to answer particularly from a Bridgend perspective because a lot of the photographs that were used, as the Committee may know, were harvested from social networking sites.
Q238 Helen Southworth: That is a why I asked about consent before publication because it is so easy to get hold of them.
Mr Langan: It is easy because by the very nature of them they are in the public domain. They could be harvested because in effect there was an informed consent that that photograph was there to be shared. My answer will draw me back to the work we are doing with the PCC. In terms of what happened at Bridgend, once the PCC became involved they did hold a meeting with the bereaved families and it was at that meeting, which I was fortunate—although it is wrong use of the word—to be invited to, the issue around re-publication of photographs was actually discussed at some length. I do not think it is possible with the public domain pictures to seek consent.
Q239 Helen Southworth: We have been looking at issues around protecting privacy on the internet as well as within the media. For example, in terms of data protection if you receive a piece of information you can only use it for the purpose for which you are given it. In social networking sites people are giving you information about themselves and their lives not necessarily with consent to use it for an invasion of privacy on another issue. I am wondering whether that is something we need to explore a little more, whether there is an issue about needing consent to use it for other reasons.
Mr Langan: It would be an interesting issue to explore.
Helen Southworth: Also consent from the third party, the next of kin. If a person has died, you can publish information about them without having issues around libel and they therefore have no longer given consent. I am wondering whether these are the sort of things we should ask people to look at.
Chairman: I have done quite a lot on the use of photographs on social networking sites and there have been rulings on this. Part of the question is the privacy settings of the person putting up the photographs.
Q227 Chairman: Can I thank you very much for coming and giving evidence. This is, as I think you know, a session that we are holding entirely in private particularly for the benefit of Mr Fuller who will be coming after you. It is part of a wider inquiry we are doing in the whole area of press standards, privacy and libel. Obviously the reporting of suicides is a particularly difficult and sensitive area and the lessons from Bridgend are ones we are keen to hear. Could you start by giving us an overview, on behalf of the Samaritans, as to how you see the media's treatment of the question of reporting suicides?
Mr Langan: The Samaritans, as the Committee will know, is an organisation dedicated to reducing suicide. We have worked with individuals since 1953, some years before suicide was decriminalised, so we were actually working with people who were potentially criminal before the 1961 Act. We have also worked very closely with the media; in fact the name Samaritans came from the Daily Mirror who gave us the name. We have always been very keen to work with the media because as an organisation with limited resources we value the role of the media in telling people about our service. In 1991 we published our first media guidelines which some of the Committee may know and, for the record, can be found at www.samaritans.org/media. We have used the media guidelines with policy makers and regulators. Significantly, as the Committee may know, in 2005 we managed to secure a change in the PCC's Code of Practice to include a new clause, 5(ii), on the reporting of suicide. In the light of what happened in Bridgend, I think appropriate reporting and the impact that has on vulnerable people and copy cat suicides were issues we had to address very quickly. In terms of where we were, to briefly get this out, we began in a situation where we felt some of the media stories were damaging, probably counter-productive and through interventions from ourselves and from members of this House we were able to work with the PCC and editors quite quickly to address some of those concerns. At this stage in the process we still need to keep working with the PCC and probably with the Code Committee to look at how that Code works and whether we can do some extension to that remit. That is where we are at the minute.
Q228 Rosemary McKenna: Talking about the PCC Code, does it give enough guidance on the issues surrounding suicide reporting?
Mr Langan: In itself I do not think it does. One of the things that Bridgend threw up is within the remit of the PCC a lot of things fall outside that Code. There were particular issues around the re-publication and duplication of photographs. The new Editor's Codebook talks about dramatisation of suicide and I think it is equally dangerous to look at the normalisation of suicide. When we looked at the regular re-publication of 10 or 20 photographs of people of a certain age then other people of that age would see perhaps a pattern of normalisation and that was equally dangerous. The current Code does not address that. We think the guidance note behind that could do with some work but we see the Code of Conduct as a working document. We want to keep working with the PCC and the Code Committee to extend that remit so it is actually going to go further.
Q229 Rosemary McKenna: There is a question about their expertise. Do you think they have the necessary expertise to adjudicate on the reporting of the suicide cases that we have seen?
Mr Langan: I am not familiar with that conversation I have to say. In our dealings with the PCC what they have always stressed to us is they are not of the media, they are separate to the media, and in that respect they have the ability to look across the piece. I do not feel qualified to talk about their expertise.
Rosemary McKenna: It is a very specific area and they really ought to have some kind of expertise.
Q230 Chairman: That suggestion was specifically raised with us by PAPYRUS. Are you familiar with them and would you think they are probably pretty good advocates?
Mr Langan: We work very closely with PAPYRUS. In terms of Bridgend, I know PAPYRUS said that they initiated a principle of not speaking to the press. We decided to work differently in that respect. In our view, we felt it was important to make sure that the objective we were getting across was, first of all, to make sure that people were looking at this properly and were not picking up on some of the slightly less evidence-based conclusions that were being drawn about why these suicides were taking place. There were discussions around internet death cults and other things and that have never been proven. Again, to refer to some of the previous witnesses' evidence, we felt there was a potential that if the press were not being spoken to, then stories would go ahead based on limited sets of information ***. We do work very closely with PAPYRUS and we continue to do so. I am not familiar with the argument about the question of expertise. In terms of our own work, once the PCC got involved we found them very helpful.
Q231 Rosemary McKenna: Did they come to you for advice?
Mr Langan: Since Bridgend they have come back to us. My invitation here today has been somewhat helped by the PCC. I have also worked with them on delivering a seminar to students at the LSE and academics there on the politics of talking about suicide in the media so it is a developing professional relationship.
Q232 Mr Hall: Reporting on these issues is quite a difficult thing because it is a very personal tragedy for the families yet there is quite a lot of public interest. What do you think of the press coverage that surrounded the Bridgend suicides?
Mr Langan: As I mentioned earlier, some of the initial stories did cause us concern. When we began to look at these we realised ourselves that in terms of complaining to the PCC they were outside their remit. *** We would contact the papers to actually talk about our concerns, about how things were not being represented. Our focus at that stage was to talk to the papers locally to see what we could sort out. If you look at the PCC, and I have been thinking about this quite a lot, in terms of the change that Samaritans would want to see, the PCC is able to make a level of redress but again, as other witnesses have said, once the story is out there it is out there. We are looking now at how we can actually *** help in the development of those codes. It is more important that we are preventing future deaths and preventing inappropriate reporting.
Q233 Mr Hall: You said you had concerns and they were reported outside the remit. Could you be slightly more specific about what the concerns were and where they had gone beyond the remit?
Mr Langan: Probably in the duplication of those photographs. Early on a number of papers, and it is difficult for me to remember the names now, would publish either a front page or a double page spread and around the perimeter of the page you would see the photographs of the young people. Again, because it was developing a picture of a youth group, potentially looking at suicide as a normal life choice, we thought that was potentially dangerous.
Q234 Mr Hall: Did you think it contributed to further suicides?
Mr Langan: It is a difficult question to answer. Any view of suicide and suicide research is a long-term issue. It is only now that some of the researchers, particularly Professor Keith Hawton at Oxford, are beginning to look at that. I know there is some work taking place in Wales as well to look at media and whether that has had an impact ***
Q235 Mr Hall: Am I right in thinking there is no protection against the names of people who have committed suicide being reported?
Mr Langan: I am not a legal expert but I do not believe there is a privacy law for the dead as such.
Q236 Mr Hall: Would that help?
Mr Langan: I am not an expert on these things. It is difficult to say. What Samaritans wanted to see in this situation was a discussion around the issue that was positive and useful.*** Though it is not a crime, because suicide is not a crime, it is often stigmatized. ***
Mr Hall: For juveniles there is a lot of protection in the press if you are alive with loads of restrictions on reporting but the minute you are dead there is not.
Q237 Helen Southworth: Following on from what Mike was asking but slightly sideways, can I ask you about the impact on families and your experience at the Samaritans of the impact on families of somebody who has committed suicide generally? Do you have an opinion on whether newspapers should have to seek the consent of a next of kin before they publish photographs and details of somebody who has committed suicide? There is an issue around intrusion and privacy of somebody who is the closest relative who must be feeling very considerable grief and possibly guilt and anxieties around the fact that they themselves have not been able to do anything to prevent it.
Mr Langan: In terms of the issue around next of kin, it is a difficult one to answer particularly from a Bridgend perspective because a lot of the photographs that were used, as the Committee may know, were harvested from social networking sites.
Q238 Helen Southworth: That is a why I asked about consent before publication because it is so easy to get hold of them.
Mr Langan: It is easy because by the very nature of them they are in the public domain. They could be harvested because in effect there was an informed consent that that photograph was there to be shared. My answer will draw me back to the work we are doing with the PCC. In terms of what happened at Bridgend, once the PCC became involved they did hold a meeting with the bereaved families and it was at that meeting, which I was fortunate—although it is wrong use of the word—to be invited to, the issue around re-publication of photographs was actually discussed at some length. I do not think it is possible with the public domain pictures to seek consent.
Q239 Helen Southworth: We have been looking at issues around protecting privacy on the internet as well as within the media. For example, in terms of data protection if you receive a piece of information you can only use it for the purpose for which you are given it. In social networking sites people are giving you information about themselves and their lives not necessarily with consent to use it for an invasion of privacy on another issue. I am wondering whether that is something we need to explore a little more, whether there is an issue about needing consent to use it for other reasons.
Mr Langan: It would be an interesting issue to explore.
Helen Southworth: Also consent from the third party, the next of kin. If a person has died, you can publish information about them without having issues around libel and they therefore have no longer given consent. I am wondering whether these are the sort of things we should ask people to look at.
Chairman: I have done quite a lot on the use of photographs on social networking sites and there have been rulings on this. Part of the question is the privacy settings of the person putting up the photographs.
Q240 Helen Southworth: I was wondering
about the impact and whether the Samaritans have an opinion on
whether they think something more should be done.
Mr Langan: It needs to be explored. I am a member of the UK Council on Child Internet Safety. I am sitting on the Industry Standards sub-group and I will make sure this is one of the issues we will discuss within that if I am able to bring it up within that sub-group. A lot of this will refer to the terms of service. A lot will also be open to the arrangements that we have with the social networking providers and their terms of service and their desire to actually take those steps. I feel I cannot adequately answer on these things. *** It is equally important that people understand the finality of the act. Taking the photograph away could, and this needs to be researched further, have an adverse effect on that. It may not enable people to connect with that individual in a way that could be helpful.
Q241 Helen Southworth: In terms of the issue of helpfulness, on television for example, when difficult issues are being explored, there will be a point at the end where they say if you have been affected by these issues they show a contact for help. Do you think this is something that the media generally are dealing with appropriately?
Mr Langan: Going back to Bridgend, every time we contacted the newspapers, and again through work with the PCC, we were able to get messages back to the editors that we wanted them to make sure that in every piece that they were writing they were putting sources of support at the bottom.
Q242 Helen Southworth: Were they doing that without your contact?
Mr Langan: It has been an ongoing piece of work we have done with them for many years and Bridgend just meant that we could actually push that issue home.
Q243 Helen Southworth: When the Bridgend issue was coming out, were people putting at the end of the pieces sources of support?
Mr Langan: In the majority of the cases, yes.
Q244 Helen Southworth: Were there any examples of where they were not or were you content with the full coverage?
Mr Langan: Off the top of my head I cannot recall but I could check that. I feel in most of the cases people were either giving out the Samaritans' or the PAPYRUS number and on broadcasting, if it was appropriate, they would give out the name of the BBC action line. You asked me a question about the families. The impact on families is devastating. I still feel very touched by that families' meeting I went to. Hearing the families' stories was one of the most moving things I have ever heard. I have had similar meetings in Northern Ireland where families there have also been bereaved in these circumstances. What struck me about the families is they had a belief in the media. They had a belief in the press that they could help and I think sometimes some of those families felt betrayed but maybe that is too strong a word. I think they were looking for support and they were talking to people. Some of those families came out of the experience feeling that the media had let them down.
Q245 Janet Anderson: You mentioned the meeting in Bridgend but that did not take place until May and the suicides had started in January. Sir Christopher Meyer was asked if he felt the PCC had been too late in going down there and he said "We should have been down there earlier." Do you think the PCC were a bit slow in getting involved or were you happy with what they were doing?
Mr Langan: My recollection of the dates has got a bit fuzzy. I was in Wales quite a lot at that time and continue to travel to work with the Assembly and with my Samaritans colleagues there. I thought there was a meeting in February with the PCC but I would have to check my records because I have not brought them with me. They did hold an open day in Bridgend. They had a families' meeting and they had a number of meetings across the day. I thought that was February but I would have to check.[1]
Q246 Janet Anderson: If you could check that because our information was that was in May and if that was the case that was a bit late. Generally you think they did get involved at an early stage and their involvement was helpful.
Mr Langan: The involvement of the PCC was not initiated by us. We were busy at the time trying to support our volunteers inside Bridgend County to develop an intervention they were doing called Feet on the Streets which was about them doing outreach in the community so our focus was there. We were also very caught up in talking to the media. I would say actually a lot of the pressure put on the PCC probably came from Madeleine Moon MP in terms of her desire to see some action taken there.
Q247 Janet Anderson: Do you think Madeleine should have had to put that pressure on in order to make them act or should they have been more proactive?
Mr Langan: Other witnesses have spoken about the role of the PCC and why it sometimes is not proactive. I am really not familiar enough with the situation. I feel once they got involved they were helpful. If they had been involved sooner, I think what probably would have happened is that the desist notices that they helped get to editors would have happened sooner and that would have been helpful.
Q248 Paul Farrelly: I want to try and set the context in which the press reporting happens before I ask a couple more questions about the PCC. In 20 months there were 23 suicides, according to the briefing we have here, in and around Bridgend. Is that statistic in any way out of the ordinary in the sense that there may be in one area one suicide in 20 months or two or three but in many places around the country at some point there will statistically randomly be 20 or 25? Was there anything more to the suicides in Bridgend that was more than randomly out of the ordinary?
Mr Langan: My understanding of the figures is in terms of the deaths there were six in 2007 and 19 in 2008. I would have to check those figures but there were also a number of other deaths but because they did not happen in the under-28 age group they were not reported in the same way. Looking back at the figures from where I am now, yes it is a significant number and it is out of the ordinary.
Q249 Paul Farrelly: Is it more than randomly out of the ordinary?
Mr Langan: I do not know what you mean by randomly out of the ordinary.
Q250 Paul Farrelly: Let us take tossing a coin. On average the number of heads and tails will even out over a long period but at some stage, even though it looks in terms of probability something funny is going on, you might get a run of 20 or 30 heads. If you take the whole sample it is a large number but it is not out of the ordinary because it is random. That is what I am trying to get at. Was it anything more than random and were they connected? I want to come to the thesis the press were reporting.
Mr Langan: Initially it was not possible to say whether it was out of the ordinary in that respect. As the situation progressed, we felt that it was a suicide cluster and various people have spoken about the "Werther effect". We did begin to believe that it was a suicide cluster so that is therefore something which is not random. There is a process by which that is occurring but it is an under-researched area.
Q251 Paul Farrelly: Is there any evidence that thesis is correct?
Mr Langan: At this point that is still being developed.[2]
Q252 Chairman: Have there been other suicide clusters? It is a recognised phenomenon.
Mr Langan: Yes.
Q253 Paul Farrelly: Like people getting brain tumours, it happens in clusters. It could be statistically random but some people associate it with electricity pylons. They make a connection that may or may not be justified. Was it your belief that there may be a suicide cluster encouraged by press reporting?
Mr Langan: No, I think we felt that it may have been a suicide cluster prior to significant media reporting. Again, I refer to the need for research. We know that there is some research taking place at the University of Swansea on the impact of the media. I feel it is better to wait for that research to come out to see if there are any direct links between media reporting and further suicides.
Q254 Paul Farrelly: From what I am hearing now it may well have been a legitimate avenue of inquiry and thesis for the media to explore that there may well be suicide pacts encouraged by possible social networking.
Mr Langan: We looked at the issue of suicide pacts and I do not think there was any evidence of suicide pacts.
Q255 Paul Farrelly: What do you mean by suicide cluster?
Mr Langan: A suicide cluster is when within a given locality you will see a pattern of suicides taking place. That is what happened within Bridgend County. We saw within a distinct locality that there were a significant number of suicides taking place within a distinct period.
Q256 Paul Farrelly: You used the word cluster and you used the word pact.
Mr Langan: Did you say pact or pattern?
Q257 Paul Farrelly: I asked what a cluster was and you answered with the word pattern but that begs the question what do you mean by pattern?
Mr Langan: A pattern is a number, a distribution, how those happen within that locality within that time frame.
Q258 Paul Farrelly: This goes back to the original statistical question: there may be nothing in it. It may be just a statistical random aberration.
Mr Langan: It may be but I would look towards the research which is currently taking place to see if that is the case.
Q259 Paul Farrelly: You have reached the concerns whether there may be links and you have undertaken that research now, but you say you may have thought that before the press reporting encouraged it. The press could say it was a legitimate avenue of inquiry, particularly with the growth of social networking sites, as to whether this statistically large number of people and their suicides were connected and whether social networking was in some way responsible or encouraging. They might say it was legitimate to follow that line of inquiry in the public interest.
Mr Langan: They might.
Mr Langan: It needs to be explored. I am a member of the UK Council on Child Internet Safety. I am sitting on the Industry Standards sub-group and I will make sure this is one of the issues we will discuss within that if I am able to bring it up within that sub-group. A lot of this will refer to the terms of service. A lot will also be open to the arrangements that we have with the social networking providers and their terms of service and their desire to actually take those steps. I feel I cannot adequately answer on these things. *** It is equally important that people understand the finality of the act. Taking the photograph away could, and this needs to be researched further, have an adverse effect on that. It may not enable people to connect with that individual in a way that could be helpful.
Q241 Helen Southworth: In terms of the issue of helpfulness, on television for example, when difficult issues are being explored, there will be a point at the end where they say if you have been affected by these issues they show a contact for help. Do you think this is something that the media generally are dealing with appropriately?
Mr Langan: Going back to Bridgend, every time we contacted the newspapers, and again through work with the PCC, we were able to get messages back to the editors that we wanted them to make sure that in every piece that they were writing they were putting sources of support at the bottom.
Q242 Helen Southworth: Were they doing that without your contact?
Mr Langan: It has been an ongoing piece of work we have done with them for many years and Bridgend just meant that we could actually push that issue home.
Q243 Helen Southworth: When the Bridgend issue was coming out, were people putting at the end of the pieces sources of support?
Mr Langan: In the majority of the cases, yes.
Q244 Helen Southworth: Were there any examples of where they were not or were you content with the full coverage?
Mr Langan: Off the top of my head I cannot recall but I could check that. I feel in most of the cases people were either giving out the Samaritans' or the PAPYRUS number and on broadcasting, if it was appropriate, they would give out the name of the BBC action line. You asked me a question about the families. The impact on families is devastating. I still feel very touched by that families' meeting I went to. Hearing the families' stories was one of the most moving things I have ever heard. I have had similar meetings in Northern Ireland where families there have also been bereaved in these circumstances. What struck me about the families is they had a belief in the media. They had a belief in the press that they could help and I think sometimes some of those families felt betrayed but maybe that is too strong a word. I think they were looking for support and they were talking to people. Some of those families came out of the experience feeling that the media had let them down.
Q245 Janet Anderson: You mentioned the meeting in Bridgend but that did not take place until May and the suicides had started in January. Sir Christopher Meyer was asked if he felt the PCC had been too late in going down there and he said "We should have been down there earlier." Do you think the PCC were a bit slow in getting involved or were you happy with what they were doing?
Mr Langan: My recollection of the dates has got a bit fuzzy. I was in Wales quite a lot at that time and continue to travel to work with the Assembly and with my Samaritans colleagues there. I thought there was a meeting in February with the PCC but I would have to check my records because I have not brought them with me. They did hold an open day in Bridgend. They had a families' meeting and they had a number of meetings across the day. I thought that was February but I would have to check.[1]
Q246 Janet Anderson: If you could check that because our information was that was in May and if that was the case that was a bit late. Generally you think they did get involved at an early stage and their involvement was helpful.
Mr Langan: The involvement of the PCC was not initiated by us. We were busy at the time trying to support our volunteers inside Bridgend County to develop an intervention they were doing called Feet on the Streets which was about them doing outreach in the community so our focus was there. We were also very caught up in talking to the media. I would say actually a lot of the pressure put on the PCC probably came from Madeleine Moon MP in terms of her desire to see some action taken there.
Q247 Janet Anderson: Do you think Madeleine should have had to put that pressure on in order to make them act or should they have been more proactive?
Mr Langan: Other witnesses have spoken about the role of the PCC and why it sometimes is not proactive. I am really not familiar enough with the situation. I feel once they got involved they were helpful. If they had been involved sooner, I think what probably would have happened is that the desist notices that they helped get to editors would have happened sooner and that would have been helpful.
Q248 Paul Farrelly: I want to try and set the context in which the press reporting happens before I ask a couple more questions about the PCC. In 20 months there were 23 suicides, according to the briefing we have here, in and around Bridgend. Is that statistic in any way out of the ordinary in the sense that there may be in one area one suicide in 20 months or two or three but in many places around the country at some point there will statistically randomly be 20 or 25? Was there anything more to the suicides in Bridgend that was more than randomly out of the ordinary?
Mr Langan: My understanding of the figures is in terms of the deaths there were six in 2007 and 19 in 2008. I would have to check those figures but there were also a number of other deaths but because they did not happen in the under-28 age group they were not reported in the same way. Looking back at the figures from where I am now, yes it is a significant number and it is out of the ordinary.
Q249 Paul Farrelly: Is it more than randomly out of the ordinary?
Mr Langan: I do not know what you mean by randomly out of the ordinary.
Q250 Paul Farrelly: Let us take tossing a coin. On average the number of heads and tails will even out over a long period but at some stage, even though it looks in terms of probability something funny is going on, you might get a run of 20 or 30 heads. If you take the whole sample it is a large number but it is not out of the ordinary because it is random. That is what I am trying to get at. Was it anything more than random and were they connected? I want to come to the thesis the press were reporting.
Mr Langan: Initially it was not possible to say whether it was out of the ordinary in that respect. As the situation progressed, we felt that it was a suicide cluster and various people have spoken about the "Werther effect". We did begin to believe that it was a suicide cluster so that is therefore something which is not random. There is a process by which that is occurring but it is an under-researched area.
Q251 Paul Farrelly: Is there any evidence that thesis is correct?
Mr Langan: At this point that is still being developed.[2]
Q252 Chairman: Have there been other suicide clusters? It is a recognised phenomenon.
Mr Langan: Yes.
Q253 Paul Farrelly: Like people getting brain tumours, it happens in clusters. It could be statistically random but some people associate it with electricity pylons. They make a connection that may or may not be justified. Was it your belief that there may be a suicide cluster encouraged by press reporting?
Mr Langan: No, I think we felt that it may have been a suicide cluster prior to significant media reporting. Again, I refer to the need for research. We know that there is some research taking place at the University of Swansea on the impact of the media. I feel it is better to wait for that research to come out to see if there are any direct links between media reporting and further suicides.
Q254 Paul Farrelly: From what I am hearing now it may well have been a legitimate avenue of inquiry and thesis for the media to explore that there may well be suicide pacts encouraged by possible social networking.
Mr Langan: We looked at the issue of suicide pacts and I do not think there was any evidence of suicide pacts.
Q255 Paul Farrelly: What do you mean by suicide cluster?
Mr Langan: A suicide cluster is when within a given locality you will see a pattern of suicides taking place. That is what happened within Bridgend County. We saw within a distinct locality that there were a significant number of suicides taking place within a distinct period.
Q256 Paul Farrelly: You used the word cluster and you used the word pact.
Mr Langan: Did you say pact or pattern?
Q257 Paul Farrelly: I asked what a cluster was and you answered with the word pattern but that begs the question what do you mean by pattern?
Mr Langan: A pattern is a number, a distribution, how those happen within that locality within that time frame.
Q258 Paul Farrelly: This goes back to the original statistical question: there may be nothing in it. It may be just a statistical random aberration.
Mr Langan: It may be but I would look towards the research which is currently taking place to see if that is the case.
Q259 Paul Farrelly: You have reached the concerns whether there may be links and you have undertaken that research now, but you say you may have thought that before the press reporting encouraged it. The press could say it was a legitimate avenue of inquiry, particularly with the growth of social networking sites, as to whether this statistically large number of people and their suicides were connected and whether social networking was in some way responsible or encouraging. They might say it was legitimate to follow that line of inquiry in the public interest.
Mr Langan: They might.
Q260 Paul Farrelly: What would you
say to that?
Mr Langan: There were a number of lines of inquiry taking place at the time.
Q261 Paul Farrelly: It is a line of inquiry that you are pursuing internally?
Mr Langan: In terms of the research, it is looking at what were the links if any. Yes, it is a legitimate line of inquiry to look at: does this phenomenon called social networking have an impact but it is similar to the same questions we have asked about whether television and broadcasting have an impact. We have had some research on that so I think it is a legitimate line of inquiry, yes.
Q262 Paul Farrelly: Do you think that in the reporting the reporting went from what you might say is a legitimate speculation overstepping the mark and asserting things that could not be supported by the evidence, that there were pacts, and therefore it was irresponsible in that respect?
Mr Langan: I do not recall that many reports talking about suicide pacts.
Q263 Paul Farrelly: This is what stands out in my mind from the memory of the reporting.
Mr Langan: There were obviously some reports about the relationships between people. Whether there was interaction there or not I have not heard and I think that is yet to be established.
Q264 Paul Farrelly: To your recollection, was there any single newspaper, or one or two newspapers, that were pursuing the story in such a way that it became incumbent on other media and newspapers to follow them?
Mr Langan: I do not think so.
Q265 Paul Farrelly: Was there one newspaper like the Daily Mail or the Daily Express?
Mr Langan: My recollection is there was not. I think it was a story which captured national attention and many of the papers were interested in the issue. In terms of our press office, I would have to go back and check how many inquiries we were getting from separate newspapers. I think they came from across the titles.
Q266 Paul Farrelly: The PCC has shown us examples of a procedure called desist notices. They have told us that everyone has always observed the desist notice. It begs the question as to whether they have a conversation beforehand and ask will you observe it if we issue a desist notice. That is something we will talk to them about. Did the PCC issue any desist notices, to your knowledge, in this situation?
Mr Langan: My understanding was that the PCC did issue desist notices to editors about the re-publication of photographs and that was following the meeting in Bridgend with the families.
Q267 Paul Farrelly: Was that notice respected?
Mr Langan: I believe so.
Q268 Rosemary McKenna: Have there been any further suicides since the end of 2008 and have they been reported differently?
Mr Langan: There were some suicides over Christmas and New Year which Members may have heard about. We think they have been reported differently. They have been more low key. I think they have been appropriate in that they have not given explicit detail, which is one of the considerations that we do ask of reporters in this matter. Some of the lessons are being learned. I raised this point earlier but what is important for Samaritans is to ensure that the lessons of Bridgend are properly picked up on in terms of the work with the PCC. We see that as one avenue to make sure that redress can be developed. I think it is more important for us now to work with the Code Committee to make sure that there are opportunities to actually engage in the development of future codes to make sure that they are actually addressing these issues in quite strong detail.
Q269 Philip Davies: I was interested when you were answering Paul's questions about this concept of cluster suicides. It is a well known phenomenon. I did not know it was but obviously it is. We are focusing here on Bridgend but has the reporting of Bridgend been totally different from the media reporting regarding other cluster suicides? Where you do get a cluster in an area has the reporting of that in other places been the same as what took place in Bridgend or has the reporting of the Bridgend one been completely different to the reporting of any other cluster suicides?
Mr Langan: I think Bridgend was a phenomenon. I would hope it was a singular event. The previous cluster that I am familiar with was in Craigavon in Northern Ireland about a year previously. That was quite significantly reported in the Northern Irish press and did hit the national news in the UK but it did not have the same impact as Bridgend did. I am not sure what the reasons for that were and I would hope that would be explored in the research. Bridgend was a particular event. Since Bridgend there have not been, as far as I can recall, any significant suicide clusters. There have been a number of other high profile suicides that we have talked to the PCC and editors about, again about the detail used in a story, the language and the imagery used. This is the issue about why article 5(ii) needs to be explored and expanded in the Code. I am not sure how far I can talk about other examples but we have recently talked to the PCC about some cases of murder suicide where we have felt that there has been explicit detail. One of the anomalies we are starting to look at is whether innovative, novel, graphic methods of death are more likely to affect vulnerable people than talking about imagery and methods of death which are more open and accessible to people. I reflect this in passing, say between portable power tools and people's school ties. If they are referred to in the story, do those different methods have different impacts on the audiences?
Q270 Philip Davies: In terms of cluster suicides and what might be expected when you get them and the factors in them, with the Bridgend ones was the fact they were so young a special factor or would that be the age range in which lots of people do commit suicide? Was the age of the people one of the factors that would have alerted a big press interest?
Mr Langan: I think so. One of the things we know about vulnerable groups in Wales is that it is not necessarily that suicide across Wales is higher than the other UK nations but that there are hard to reach groups within that nation. The 16-25 age group was seen as a particular risk. What is interesting though is these other suicides over the age of 28 that I referred to they have not been reported in the same way. We are looking at something like 14 suicides which were not reported in the same way because they were over that age.
Q271 Philip Davies: Is it more distressing to the family to have reported the suicides of children? It seems to me that potentially it may well be more distressing for the families of a child who has committed suicide and equally that could be of more interest to the media. You have this double whammy that it is more tragic in many respects for the families because it was somebody so young that had done this and that is made worse by the fact the press are more interested in it because it is somebody so young.
Mr Langan: There is no doubt that the death of a child does have an impact on a family member. The majority of people in the country have families and children and those sorts of stories will have an impact without a doubt. Could I ask the Committee one favour? One of the things we ask people who talk about suicide not to do is say "commit suicide". Because it is not a criminal act we feel that the connotations of saying "commit" with the word "suicide" do actually continue the stigma. We prefer to say people who take their own life.
Q272 Alan Keen: There are lots of feelings put forward about the media; that they made it into a story because it looked like one was affecting the other. My feeling as they stand at the moment is there is something in the fact that one person who is that sort of individual and is close to considering taking their own life we could not argue that they would not be influenced by this but the evidence is far from convincing. What is your feeling? Are you getting towards feeling that maybe there is a case for an authority, the PCC, needing to be able to step in and stop the reporting or are you completely unconvinced of that? How do you feel now?
Mr Langan: We have always supported the reporting of suicide because we think it is an under-discussed issue. The press, the media, are a good channel for getting this topic discussed so we do not want to see a ban on suicide reporting. Norway tried that route but have now stepped back from it. We think that the topic should be open for discussion. What we welcomed from the PCC was the use of desist notices, where I was told they were being used, in order to reduce the pain upon the families from seeing photographs re-produced ***. There were issues raised by the families that these photographs were photographs that did not really represent the person; they were almost a persona used for social networking sites. It is a balance between the two. We do need to make sure that this issue continues to be discussed. Our role again on this was to make sure that the issues being discussed were the right issues. We have talked about some of the less developed theories about why these things happened. There were discussions about this being caused by electricity pylons which were disputed ***. Perhaps in those circumstances it is important that we can continue to work with the papers, particularly locally, to say "What has that actually done to help with this problem?"
Q273 Alan Keen: Did most of the press or all of the press actually say there is a possible danger here, can we help, or did they just report it to get headlines? Were the press responsible when they reported these things and the possible links? Did they, at the same time, say this is where you go for help?
Mr Langan: Yes, they did do that. It is that issue of ensuring that whenever we were being interviewed we always made sure we were telling people our telephone number, telling people the website address, but also asking the editors, and the readers' editors as well, to actually work within the paper to ensure that those sources of support were being put in the papers whenever the story was discussed.
Q274 Alan Keen: Your feeling is that we do not have to recommend anything further. You would rather that your help continued to be there in the future or do you think there is something you would like us to actually say?
Mr Langan: If there is a recommendation or if there is something that Samaritans would like to see, I think it does come into the issue of regulation and it is about the development of the Code. I am sure the Committee are familiar with the report from the Media Standards Trust: A More Accountable Press. There are some useful ideas in there which could be looked at. It is only part one of the report which is out so far so it is difficult to talk on part of a report but it does point towards the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and their CAP Code. The CAP Code is coordinated by a lay chairperson and a criticism often put to the Code Committee is that it is put together by journalists, for journalists. I think if we could look at having more lay involvement in the development of that Code and could feed in at an earlier process, that would be useful from our own perspective to make sure that the issues are being discussed more openly and fully.
Q275 Helen Southworth: You have raised the detail of information that was given. Would you be able to send us something that would specify some of the areas of concern that you have? If you have time, could you look at it and decide which issues would be most suitable to let us have.
Mr Langan: I may need to check the details with you but I am sure I can help you.[3]
Mr Langan: There were a number of lines of inquiry taking place at the time.
Q261 Paul Farrelly: It is a line of inquiry that you are pursuing internally?
Mr Langan: In terms of the research, it is looking at what were the links if any. Yes, it is a legitimate line of inquiry to look at: does this phenomenon called social networking have an impact but it is similar to the same questions we have asked about whether television and broadcasting have an impact. We have had some research on that so I think it is a legitimate line of inquiry, yes.
Q262 Paul Farrelly: Do you think that in the reporting the reporting went from what you might say is a legitimate speculation overstepping the mark and asserting things that could not be supported by the evidence, that there were pacts, and therefore it was irresponsible in that respect?
Mr Langan: I do not recall that many reports talking about suicide pacts.
Q263 Paul Farrelly: This is what stands out in my mind from the memory of the reporting.
Mr Langan: There were obviously some reports about the relationships between people. Whether there was interaction there or not I have not heard and I think that is yet to be established.
Q264 Paul Farrelly: To your recollection, was there any single newspaper, or one or two newspapers, that were pursuing the story in such a way that it became incumbent on other media and newspapers to follow them?
Mr Langan: I do not think so.
Q265 Paul Farrelly: Was there one newspaper like the Daily Mail or the Daily Express?
Mr Langan: My recollection is there was not. I think it was a story which captured national attention and many of the papers were interested in the issue. In terms of our press office, I would have to go back and check how many inquiries we were getting from separate newspapers. I think they came from across the titles.
Q266 Paul Farrelly: The PCC has shown us examples of a procedure called desist notices. They have told us that everyone has always observed the desist notice. It begs the question as to whether they have a conversation beforehand and ask will you observe it if we issue a desist notice. That is something we will talk to them about. Did the PCC issue any desist notices, to your knowledge, in this situation?
Mr Langan: My understanding was that the PCC did issue desist notices to editors about the re-publication of photographs and that was following the meeting in Bridgend with the families.
Q267 Paul Farrelly: Was that notice respected?
Mr Langan: I believe so.
Q268 Rosemary McKenna: Have there been any further suicides since the end of 2008 and have they been reported differently?
Mr Langan: There were some suicides over Christmas and New Year which Members may have heard about. We think they have been reported differently. They have been more low key. I think they have been appropriate in that they have not given explicit detail, which is one of the considerations that we do ask of reporters in this matter. Some of the lessons are being learned. I raised this point earlier but what is important for Samaritans is to ensure that the lessons of Bridgend are properly picked up on in terms of the work with the PCC. We see that as one avenue to make sure that redress can be developed. I think it is more important for us now to work with the Code Committee to make sure that there are opportunities to actually engage in the development of future codes to make sure that they are actually addressing these issues in quite strong detail.
Q269 Philip Davies: I was interested when you were answering Paul's questions about this concept of cluster suicides. It is a well known phenomenon. I did not know it was but obviously it is. We are focusing here on Bridgend but has the reporting of Bridgend been totally different from the media reporting regarding other cluster suicides? Where you do get a cluster in an area has the reporting of that in other places been the same as what took place in Bridgend or has the reporting of the Bridgend one been completely different to the reporting of any other cluster suicides?
Mr Langan: I think Bridgend was a phenomenon. I would hope it was a singular event. The previous cluster that I am familiar with was in Craigavon in Northern Ireland about a year previously. That was quite significantly reported in the Northern Irish press and did hit the national news in the UK but it did not have the same impact as Bridgend did. I am not sure what the reasons for that were and I would hope that would be explored in the research. Bridgend was a particular event. Since Bridgend there have not been, as far as I can recall, any significant suicide clusters. There have been a number of other high profile suicides that we have talked to the PCC and editors about, again about the detail used in a story, the language and the imagery used. This is the issue about why article 5(ii) needs to be explored and expanded in the Code. I am not sure how far I can talk about other examples but we have recently talked to the PCC about some cases of murder suicide where we have felt that there has been explicit detail. One of the anomalies we are starting to look at is whether innovative, novel, graphic methods of death are more likely to affect vulnerable people than talking about imagery and methods of death which are more open and accessible to people. I reflect this in passing, say between portable power tools and people's school ties. If they are referred to in the story, do those different methods have different impacts on the audiences?
Q270 Philip Davies: In terms of cluster suicides and what might be expected when you get them and the factors in them, with the Bridgend ones was the fact they were so young a special factor or would that be the age range in which lots of people do commit suicide? Was the age of the people one of the factors that would have alerted a big press interest?
Mr Langan: I think so. One of the things we know about vulnerable groups in Wales is that it is not necessarily that suicide across Wales is higher than the other UK nations but that there are hard to reach groups within that nation. The 16-25 age group was seen as a particular risk. What is interesting though is these other suicides over the age of 28 that I referred to they have not been reported in the same way. We are looking at something like 14 suicides which were not reported in the same way because they were over that age.
Q271 Philip Davies: Is it more distressing to the family to have reported the suicides of children? It seems to me that potentially it may well be more distressing for the families of a child who has committed suicide and equally that could be of more interest to the media. You have this double whammy that it is more tragic in many respects for the families because it was somebody so young that had done this and that is made worse by the fact the press are more interested in it because it is somebody so young.
Mr Langan: There is no doubt that the death of a child does have an impact on a family member. The majority of people in the country have families and children and those sorts of stories will have an impact without a doubt. Could I ask the Committee one favour? One of the things we ask people who talk about suicide not to do is say "commit suicide". Because it is not a criminal act we feel that the connotations of saying "commit" with the word "suicide" do actually continue the stigma. We prefer to say people who take their own life.
Q272 Alan Keen: There are lots of feelings put forward about the media; that they made it into a story because it looked like one was affecting the other. My feeling as they stand at the moment is there is something in the fact that one person who is that sort of individual and is close to considering taking their own life we could not argue that they would not be influenced by this but the evidence is far from convincing. What is your feeling? Are you getting towards feeling that maybe there is a case for an authority, the PCC, needing to be able to step in and stop the reporting or are you completely unconvinced of that? How do you feel now?
Mr Langan: We have always supported the reporting of suicide because we think it is an under-discussed issue. The press, the media, are a good channel for getting this topic discussed so we do not want to see a ban on suicide reporting. Norway tried that route but have now stepped back from it. We think that the topic should be open for discussion. What we welcomed from the PCC was the use of desist notices, where I was told they were being used, in order to reduce the pain upon the families from seeing photographs re-produced ***. There were issues raised by the families that these photographs were photographs that did not really represent the person; they were almost a persona used for social networking sites. It is a balance between the two. We do need to make sure that this issue continues to be discussed. Our role again on this was to make sure that the issues being discussed were the right issues. We have talked about some of the less developed theories about why these things happened. There were discussions about this being caused by electricity pylons which were disputed ***. Perhaps in those circumstances it is important that we can continue to work with the papers, particularly locally, to say "What has that actually done to help with this problem?"
Q273 Alan Keen: Did most of the press or all of the press actually say there is a possible danger here, can we help, or did they just report it to get headlines? Were the press responsible when they reported these things and the possible links? Did they, at the same time, say this is where you go for help?
Mr Langan: Yes, they did do that. It is that issue of ensuring that whenever we were being interviewed we always made sure we were telling people our telephone number, telling people the website address, but also asking the editors, and the readers' editors as well, to actually work within the paper to ensure that those sources of support were being put in the papers whenever the story was discussed.
Q274 Alan Keen: Your feeling is that we do not have to recommend anything further. You would rather that your help continued to be there in the future or do you think there is something you would like us to actually say?
Mr Langan: If there is a recommendation or if there is something that Samaritans would like to see, I think it does come into the issue of regulation and it is about the development of the Code. I am sure the Committee are familiar with the report from the Media Standards Trust: A More Accountable Press. There are some useful ideas in there which could be looked at. It is only part one of the report which is out so far so it is difficult to talk on part of a report but it does point towards the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and their CAP Code. The CAP Code is coordinated by a lay chairperson and a criticism often put to the Code Committee is that it is put together by journalists, for journalists. I think if we could look at having more lay involvement in the development of that Code and could feed in at an earlier process, that would be useful from our own perspective to make sure that the issues are being discussed more openly and fully.
Q275 Helen Southworth: You have raised the detail of information that was given. Would you be able to send us something that would specify some of the areas of concern that you have? If you have time, could you look at it and decide which issues would be most suitable to let us have.
Mr Langan: I may need to check the details with you but I am sure I can help you.[3]
Mr TimFuller (père de victime)
Q276 Chairman: Mr Fuller, good morning. We have been hearing from Anthony Langan of the Samaritans. Would it be all right if he continued to stay?
Mr Fuller: Yes.
Chairman: Can I thank you very much for coming to talk to the Committee this morning. As you know, we are conducting an inquiry into the general standards of the press and privacy intrusion. We have focused particularly on what happened in Bridgend and the way it was reported and we would be very keen to hear from you. Can I express, on behalf of the whole of the Committee, our sympathy with your loss?
Q277 Rosemary McKenna: Good morning, Mr Fuller and thank you again. Could you describe to us the interaction that you had with the media, with the press, following your daughter's death?
Mr Fuller: I have been reviewing the whole process on the way down because there is more than just what happened after the article. If I analyse the whole scenario, it started on the day I went down to Bridgend. I live in Derbyshire and I went down to Bridgend to see the police and identify Angeline and so forth. The press were waiting to get the story out. I went the day after she died so the press were keen to get the details of who it was, where it was and get the address. The Coroner was very good, very accommodating, and would not release that information until after he spent time with myself. It was at the end of that session with the police when that was wrapped up and I was ready to go home the police and the Coroner let me know that they had released the details of the name and address of my daughter and advised that unless I could handle it not to go anywhere near the address because there were cameras and press and all sorts there. At the time I was OK with it. It had been a long hard day and I was ready to get back. I had children at home being looked after that I wanted to get back to. It did block that opportunity to go back perhaps to the scene if I felt that way. In hindsight I wondered why I did not do it. Would I have done it given the opportunity? Probably on the day I would not have done but on reflection for other people as well the fact that all that was going on there if you really felt you wanted to go and have look at what happened, maybe pick up one or two things, I was really advised that unless I could handle people coming for information that would not be a good idea. That is where it started. I was told that the press and the media were free to release that information and report on it and were likely to do so very soon. One thing I found was I was frantically making phone calls to people that perhaps I would not speak to for two or three days. Maybe if they put the news on and they have children they would pick the papers up the next morning and they would see all this information. I felt I wanted to let them know myself rather than seeing it firsthand in the media. I was put under pressure there. It took away from me the opportunity to let people know what had happened. I am not saying it should not have been reported on but that is the effect it had. I was forced into a panic situation. A close family member and myself spent a few hours on the internet that evening looking at all the newspaper sites to see what they were saying. We discovered one of them had a front page feature so first thing in the morning there were one or two people I needed to let know straight away because on the way to work they would see this and buy a paper and they would be faced with this. It put a lot of pressure on me. I understand the way the media needs to work. There is no point reporting something that happened a week ago as it is old news but it had an effect on me.
Q278 Rosemary McKenna: Do you think the Coroner's office could have kept that information for another day? Would that have been helpful?
Mr Fuller: It would have been useful from my perspective. I do not know if that is fair on the media to do that. In perspective, if it happened somewhere else in the country there would not have been this great interest but it was because it was Bridgend. She had not been there long. She had lived there about 18 months so in a way she was an outsider. As soon as I heard what had happened it did not take me long to realise she is in Bridgend and it will be everywhere which it was in a short time. It was because of the magnitude of the story and the history that what was actually a detached case became part of a growing story.
Q279 Rosemary McKenna: Did the press speak to you?
Mr Fuller: No. The police asked me if I wanted the statement issued from them and for the press to stay away and they did that and nobody contacted me. We did not get any intrusion. Somebody knocked on my door the next evening and we were sure at the time that he was an Express reporter but on reflection he could have been from the Stockport Express. A few months before I had set up my own company so I am prepared to accept that in the heat of the moment I may have sent him away saying he should not be there. I cannot say. I may have had a Daily Express reporter on the doorstep but it may have been coincidence that somebody did turn up. Aside from that I rang the police liaison and they said if somebody approaches you from the press and you ask them to leave because they should not be there and they go there is nothing more that can be done. They cannot pursue it. I did not have any more interaction with the press apart from the fact that whenever anything else happened in Bridgend the whole story was related again. I think the meeting was called in Bridgend. I was invited to attend a meeting with the PCC but because of the distance and taking a whole day out from what I could cover in 15 minutes at the time I wrote to Steve Abell at the Press Complaints Commission. I did not attend the meeting. I had some feedback from that and he asked me for a statement to forward to the newspaper. I have brought it with me. If you want any of the paperwork I am quite happy for you to have a copy of what I said to Steve Abell which he passed on to the Daily Express. Through him they apologised for certain content and the way it was reported although they do not feel that they overstepped any lines. Aside from that I have not had any major problems. It is just the issue of the way it has left me feeling for myself and the empathy I feel for other families. A few weeks after Angeline's death—I cannot remember all the details—there was a girl who died. I am not sure if she fell from a balcony or what the circumstances were but it was believed she was bullied or something. She was a lovely girl and her picture was on the front page of the newspaper. To me I did not need to see the picture. She was a lovely girl and it made the story. If they had said this had happened and the tragic circumstances and she is dead, that for me, as a non-family member and not knowing this girl, that would have been sufficient. I knew at that point, because of what I had been through, all her family and close friends would be seeing their daughter and knowing their daughter's picture was in millions of households of total strangers up and down the country. It was the front page as well which is really what exacerbates it. I mentioned in my letter to Mr Abell that just about every newspaper carried the report on Angeline's death from the small ones to the broadsheets but they were contained inside. It was only the Daily Express that had the front page article.
Q280 Mr Hall: You had the initial
impact of the coroner releasing the details of your daughter's
death and the press clamour. You have advised the Committee that
there were subsequent repeat reporting of the circumstances and
the way the Daily Express treated the story. We know that
you made a complaint to the PCC and they upheld the complaint
and you received an apology. Would you say a few words for the
Committee about how the reporting affected you and your family?
Mr Fuller: We accepted that people would get to know about it. I tend to be quite a realistic person. From the point of view of the fact this Bridgend saga, if I can call it that, had been going on for a while was public interest, we could not get away from the fact that it would be reported. We knew we would have to take some distress from that. I think the way it came across was quite intrusive. Are you familiar with the Daily Express article? Would it be of any help if I passed that out? I have here the letter I wrote to Mr Abell and the apology as it appears on the internet—it is not a direct apology to myself, just the resolution—and the strips on the front page article from the Daily Express. As we started to read through some of the reports, there was one close friend of Angeline who thought she was speaking to the police when in fact she was speaking to a reporter. She was quoted giving information about the family, her stepsisters, also personal information about mental health issues that she had and that was part of my complaint. A doctor would not divulge that sort of information so no way should that have been on the front page of the newspaper.
Q281 Chairman: When you say she thought she was talking to the police, was that because the person made out they were police?
Mr Fuller: I could not say but for whatever reason she felt she was giving information to the police. She may not have been deliberately misled but maybe if someone said "We are investigating the situation" she probably would have thought it was official. I made a few points that maybe I could raise today. When the reporter quotes the words of somebody else, does that take the responsibility off the reporter for saying those things? I feel that it should not but I feel it did in this instance. If I can give an example, in the article, and in the response as well, from the Daily Express they say that they did not give specific details of the method used and they are allowed to say that she was found hanging and that was the nature of her death. They said they gave no more details about how that happened but within the article they quoted the mother of the previous victim who actually described that they found him hanging and he had used his dressing gown cord and they found him hanging from the framework of a built-in wardrobe they were having constructed which to me is quite specific. This other lady may well have said that in conversation. Sometimes when you are talking to someone informally you do give information but I do feel that should have been edited. That sort of detail did not need to be there. It was about somebody else. I do not know whether Angeline would have read that information printed beforehand but Angeline too used a dressing gown cord so we just have this thought. I do believe that some of these youngsters were influenced by the publicity, not of the minute detail but the method. A big question has been asked why all bar one of the victims used hanging as their form of death. The question is why, because people who commit suicide or are desperate, in my view, go through a process of thinking how shall I do it; is it going to hurt; will I suffer. There can be a desperate moment and I am sure all of them suffered that desperate moment where you do not care what you do and it just happens but the questions other people are asking is why did they all choose this method. Angeline was reported as number 14. How many do you need to go down the line saying they hanged themselves, they hanged themselves, they hanged themselves? If somebody is thinking "I want help, what do I do" is it not known to be the way to do it? I notice articles more recently have said harmed themselves. Somebody was rushed to hospital and died as a consequence of harming themselves. You think they have harmed themselves, what did they do? You are none the wiser whether they cut themselves, took an overdose, tried to hang themselves or what. To me personally I feel that is as far as it should go into these instances. If you want to say it is self-harm, it does not give any clues to anybody else as to what happened. If somebody is in a vulnerable situation, mentally unbalanced, they have got problems, suicidal tendencies, they are going to be thinking about what to do. As I said, Angeline was fairly new to Bridgend but she had friends. If she is reading that this is how it is done, it obviously succeeds because they died, it was reported on; they got the publicity. Whether the memorial pages on the internet have any bearing it is not for me to say. They are there. Various people have views on that.
Q282 Chairman: One of the things we have heard, which is certainly distressing to some families in Bridgend, was the fact that not only did they have to cope with the press coverage immediately after the suicide occurred but it kept coming back because every time another one occurred all the pictures of the previous people who have taken their own life were reproduced. Just as you were trying to come to terms with it suddenly the whole thing is back seeing the pictures again in the newspapers.
Mr Fuller: That is right. I am grateful for the work that has been done to get rid of those pictures and stop that happening. Obviously it is an ongoing situation. There is talk of suicide clusters and so forth. It is not for me to say how these things exist and what the mechanics are but this article in the Daily Express again at the end listed the names of all the others so far. We did not have the picture gallery in that article. One big concern we had was my eldest son is eight; he was seven at the time. We brought him home from school and somebody else had my other two children at the time. We sat him down and said what had happened, that she was poorly. She had mental health problems to some degree. We do not know all the circumstances that caused it; the inquest is still ongoing. We wanted to help him deal with that situation. The big fear to us was that it was in the news. We kept him away from the television and newspapers for week or so while this the story was running its course but whenever another incident happened in Bridgend not only did we have the repercussion of the whole thing being replayed with all the names and pictures but there was the idea of what if this pops up on the screen or if there is a newspaper laying around and one of the children see it. In time they will come to know what happened and understand and deal with it in their own way but you cannot shield them from something that keeps coming up like that. I believe some work has been done. Those pictures have gone now. That is very distressing and I feel quite indignant that was allowed to go on. There did not seem to be any sensitivity there for the purpose of the report. Of course it adds to the impact of the article and maybe it would to someone who was detached from the family.
Q283 Chairman: The picture of your daughter that did appear, how did the newspapers come by that?
Mr Fuller: I do not know. It is interesting that the same picture seems to appear in both of the newspapers. I think overall there are only two pictures. The third one appeared later on.
Q284 Chairman: Had you seen it before?
Mr Fuller: I had not. I had not seen Angeline for quite a while. It was a picture with her boyfriend Joel. I would imagine that somebody has given a picture or it could have been lifted from an internet site. It was very widely circulated. I was surprised that all the various different newspapers got the same picture which makes me feel that it was perhaps taken from somewhere rather than given to a reporter.
Q285 Chairman: Was she on a social networking site?
Mr Fuller: I believe she was on three: Bebo, Facebook and Myspace. One had not been used for some time but Myspace she was using regularly. I used to keep an eye on it in a Dad kind of way to see what was on the front page. There is a little bit where you can say what your mood is with a photograph and things like that knowing that she had been struggling.
Q286 Chairman: To that extent her being on the social network site actually helped you.
Mr Fuller: Up to a stage. You may be aware that you can shut down correspondence and hide it to selected friends on the internet site. At one stage it was open so I was able to see who she was corresponding with and the kind of conversations that were going on, the sort of intrusive things that Dads do. Then it shut down and went private sometime before this happened so all I could see was the little bit you fill in with what mood you are in, snippets that are made public to everybody and a photograph. I could see she was drinking, that was obvious from the photograph she put on there. I would say the photographs that were used were not complimentary. They were not ones we would have chosen to give if we were asked. Because they were used in so many different arenas I do not know where it came from but I get the feeling if everybody has the same photograph it was not given by one person to one reporter.
Q287 Chairman: When you say it was not the one you would have chosen if asked, would you have been willing to provide a photograph, given there were going to be photographs that would appear, that you would like to have seen?
Mr Fuller: If we had been offered a process perhaps rather than faced with the media as an entity, if there was a channel through the police with one person perhaps with the family liaison. My sister had correspondence with the press when her son died unfortunately. It was two years before. He was 18 on his way to college and died in a car crash so a totally different set of circumstances. She had dealings with the press managed by the police family liaison officer and she was able to vet all the articles that came out from the local press. She chose the photographs and all this kind of thing and it was controlled. As a result she ended up working with a police charity helping others who have been in similar situations and lost children in road accidents. We were never given that opportunity. We knew because of the Bridgend situation this was going to get headlines. It could not help but hit the headlines. I am not daft enough to think that I could put my head above the trenches and speak to one. In fact it was said to me when I suggested would it help to perhaps give my views on what could be done to someone in the media I was cautioned that if you make it known that I am willing to speak they cannot then say to other members of the media do not speak to him. It would not be fair. I had to do an all or nothing approach. It would perhaps be nice to have a controlled report knowing that there was a need to report this in the context of everything else. If it had happened in her home town of Shrewsbury it probably would have been contained in the local newspaper but because it was Bridgend it had to go a lot wider and that is why we lost control. If we were still in the Shropshire area we probably would have had a call personally from the Shropshire Star. That is how it would have worked.
Q288 Chairman: It is an interesting thought. Do you think that there could be an extension of the role of the PCC, that they might actually offer a service to people who suddenly find themselves having to deal with the media having never had experience and providing advice about what they should provide, what their rights are in saying no? Do you think that would be helpful?
Mr Fuller: Yes, I think so. Basically the advice we got was through the coroner and the police. Sometime later the PCC started after this meeting was held in Bridgend with the various parents. You do feel that you are suddenly dealing with an unknown entity and you do not have any time to think about it. The only way I could deal with it was to sit outside the police station, before I started my journey back home, phoning work colleagues and family friends saying that I have something terrible to tell, stop stirring the dinner. It is the end of the day and I have to tell you something horrible but I need to tell you now because you might see it on the evening news. I was not given any direction apart from they are up at the house, if you do not want to get involved do not go up there. As I say, we started surfing the internet to see what the newspapers were about to publish.
Q289 Chairman: You did choose to make a complaint against the newspaper. Were you satisfied with the way that was handled and the outcome of the complaint?
Mr Fuller: I think I could have pursued it a bit further. I have mentioned about the material that was quoted which give more details which were unnecessary. I was resigned to the fact that it happened. It was months ago, people have probably forgotten about it apart from those involved in the case. The cynical side of me says they have said sorry but what is going to stop it happening again. They will slip up and put something else on the front page. They will cross the line and somebody will say they do not like it and they will say sorry and go away. I did not feel I could achieve an awful lot more. I was happy to say fair enough the flag has been raised.
Q290 Paul Farrelly: Was there a specific thing that led you to complain and say enough is enough?
Mr Fuller: Yes. Originally I was not going to complain and I was going to let it go. This is what happens when you get printed and we are not happy about it but when the meeting was called with the PCC I thought I could contribute something here. I know a lot of people have been affected by this media publicity. I was concerned that this friend of Angeline's had mentioned that she had tried to commit suicide twice before and she suffered from depression and that was included in the article. It was also included in bold the quotation half-way through the script, which you will see it on the print-out that comes around, that she tried to commit suicide twice before. To me that is personal information. They also published that her boyfriend she was living with was being treated for stress and anxiety and was unemployed which I felt very strongly about from a number of angles. That is personal information they had no right to give. Also he lived in a small community and, first, he has to get over Angeline's death, he found her there. How does anybody deal with that? He has to rebuild his life and he is looking for work or whatever to stabilise himself in that area but everybody has read in the newspaper he suffers from anxiety and depression. It could be a negative side to his character.
Q291 Paul Farrelly: Did inaccuracy play any part in your decision to go the Press Complaints Commission?
Mr Fuller: Yes, because it was on the front page and the headline actually said "internet cult death number 14". I did feel strongly about that because in all the other cases it had been established there was a question raised quite early on because these individuals had got social websites, they had put their profiles on there, one or two of them from Bridgend chatted to each other, surprise, surprise, that maybe they were linked and that is why they followed this course but the coroner and the police had on a number of occasions said they were convinced this was not behind it and that they were all individual cases. They reported Angeline had only been in Bridgend for a couple of years at most. I think it was in the same article the police had not made any connection between this and the other victims. Why put on the front page there is an internet cult situation? I looked up the definition of the word "cult" so I was not making stories in my own head. It gives the impression that individuals are in a little community of their own, perhaps talking about how they can take their life and get this glorification on the website which was not the case. It was definitely a question. I am quite happy to accept that there was a question mark over whether any of this was fed by association on the internet but the way it was presented was that Angeline was part of a group of youngsters, almost as if this was already established. Here is another one. This internet cult thing has taken another victim. How many youngsters have a mobile phone but none of the articles said all these victims had a mobile phone. Is there a mobile phone death cult going on? The youngsters do use these internet sites as much as they use a mobile phone, perhaps even more because it is free once you are on-line.
Q292 Paul Farrelly: The Daily Express apologised to you. Did that apology actually affect the behaviour of the Daily Express?
Mr Fuller: I have no idea.
Q293 Paul Farrelly: Did it affect the behaviour of the reporting afterwards of other newspapers?
Mr Fuller: I would like to think it did. I did notice one or two newspapers using the phrase "harmed themselves" but then more recently there has been another incident and told the individual hanged themselves. I could not say whether it has any lasting effect. The apology came in the form of a letter back to Mr Abell from their legal adviser who said they had sent information back around to the reporters how they were supposed to conduct themselves. They did not feel they had included excessive detail. I would disagree with that but I felt it was not worth taking any further. They did include more details in the quotation from somebody else. The items I have mentioned to you about personal details about Angeline's medical history and Joel's personal situation, the apology came in a paragraph in that letter which said we cannot really justify the inclusion and we apologise to Mr Fuller for all that. I did not get anything directly; it just came through this.
Q294 Paul Farrelly: The 16-year-old son of my children's godfather died in a tragic accident on New Year's Eve while messing around on a railway station. That made the local and the national press. I looked on the website of the local newspaper in the area and I was upset. I cannot imagine how my friend and people in families like yourselves would have felt about some of the comments that were made from members of the public on the story because the commentary invited views. Did you see any offensive comments that were run on websites belonging to the newspaper?
Mr Fuller: I would not say they were offensive. One thing that has concerned me on the subject of the websites is the fact that some work has been done behind the scenes with the police and the ISPs, the internet Service Providers, to have the pages removed. The only way to get back onto these sites is to log into them and delete them and of course once you are dead you cannot do that. Parents cannot do it and nobody else can do it. Some work has been done to have these personal sites removed. What has happened is in creating these memorial sites one way or another the person has managed to take a copy of the picture and the comments of that individual, in this case my daughter, and recreate that web page, but instead of having the conversations of that person you have tributes coming in. There is one in particular which comes up. Somebody has built this memorial garden. It is not for me to say as it may help millions of the people throughout the world because she has millions of things set up. She must devote hours and hours to setting these up for people all around the world who have lost loved ones. In my case just reviewing it there are two tributes which have appeared on the site from people she knew and the rest of them are from individuals on the other side of the world. You can tell from the comments that they have no connection with Angeline whatsoever. In a callous type of way what are they doing, just surfing this site, picking up the name of someone they do not even know and saying "God Bless. Peace you little angel. You are beautiful"? I am not saying it is not a well meant thing, and maybe some people specifically look at these to give condolence, but to me it is meaningless. I do feel a bit put out that somebody can set this up as a memorial to Angeline and anybody out there can post something on it. I do not think we have any control over that. If I decided to set up a memorial site for my daughter, I would not want other relatives saying of the ISP take it down because it is mine, I own it, it is my daughter and friends and family can put comments on it, but when somebody totally unrelated does is it how can you stop it? That troubles me but I have to let that go on out there somewhere.
Q295 Janet Anderson: Could I ask you about the meeting that the PCC called in Bridgend. I think you said this was the first contact you had with the PCC, is that right?
Mr Fuller: I am not sure if it is direct contact with the PCC. I was invited to join in the meeting as all the parents were invited.
Q296 Janet Anderson: Who invited you?
Mr Fuller: I think it came from Madeleine Moon's office via the police. There was a bit of a data protection issue when the whole thing started. The police held my name and address and Angeline's mother's name and address so any correspondence initially went out through them. I think that is how I originally got the invitation.
Q297 Janet Anderson: How long was that after your daughter's death?
Mr Fuller: I cannot remember. She died in February and it was about May some time.
Q298 Janet Anderson: That is what made you aware of the PCC and was it following that that you decided to complain?
Mr Fuller: It was. I did feel that if it was closer I would have given up the time and gone along, partly to be with the other parents as they are going through the same thing and to express my views and give support to what they were going to say. I think I had already got the gist of what they were trying to achieve because of the individual complaints. The press had reported the incidents but they had also reported the repercussions, the complaints that were being made by various parents saying we are not happy with this, that and the other being reported and things on the internet to that effect as well. It would have been an opportunity for me to say what I am saying here today, how it affected me and maybe things do need to be changed.
Q299 Janet Anderson: Your daughter died in February and that is when the distressing press coverage started. Were you at that stage aware you could have complained to the PCC?
Mr Fuller: I knew I could. I knew there was a PCC. I could have asked at the time but it was not a priority in the scheme of things. Realistically I felt that I could say something but may be it would drag things further than they need to. It was an article that was written. Most people would not know Angeline. Those who do know her were affected and upset by the article but as the weeks and months go by the people who did not know her would forget about it. They would know there were a lot of incidents in Bridgend but they would not think Angeline Fuller necessarily even though it was on the front page. I just thought let it go. The importance of something like this and the PCC meeting is to focus in on it. It is not the general public that can let it go; it is the people that are really affected. I do feel that is important. I am happy to contribute here. I would have contributed the same but it was a three or four hour journey away from home. Q300 Janet Anderson: When you say the meeting was in May, that was a long time after this started. Do you think they should have done that sooner? Mr Fuller: Maybe so. Maybe it should have been done after suicide number five. There was another incident a week or two after Angeline and then others cropped up during the subsequent months. A lot of work has been done. At the time everybody was at a bit of a loss. The Health Service was at a loss because this was going on in our community. Why are these people not being helped? Anyone in a normal state of mind does not take their life so what have we missed? The press had built their story from these incidents and it was obviously mushrooming. It is great if you have a story that you can add incidents to. From the point of building a story it is great because it keeps it going but it is a very personal and sensitive story. It is not about old buildings falling down or car crashes; it is something sensitive and horrible. Maybe the PCC could have done something earlier. Maybe somebody did not raise the flag.
Q301 Paul Farrelly: Have you looked back over the coverage from when it started before your daughter's death at all?
Mr Fuller: The only thing I have done is try to see whether there were Coroner's Inquest reports. Occasionally I have looked over the internet to see if there is anything.
Q302 Paul Farrelly: From your experience was there one newspaper driving this?
Mr Fuller: I could not say. I have not looked at it in that depth. The thing is that every newspaper carried the article. I have not focused in on the names of others and done any research to see if there is any pattern. Occasionally I type my daughter's name into a search engine and the same articles come up again right back from last year. Probably in four or five years' time they will still be there because that is how the internet is. You put something on there and unless it is physically deleted it is there forever. I must say most of the pictures have gone but there are a few still around. When that other incident happened with the girl who died some weeks after, I felt an affiliation with her relatives knowing that picture was out. Before coming here today I thought I will see if I can find that article to back up what I was going to say but I could not find it. I could not find the picture. I can still see it in my mind. I thought that is good it is not there. I would like to think three months ago I would have found it and some work has been done and that is the result. I am quite impressed that I could not find the picture. I cannot say that anything specifically has driven it but it is a good point that somebody maybe leading it but I have not done any research.
Chairman: That is probably all we have to cover. Can I thank you for coming and talking to us.
Mr Fuller: We accepted that people would get to know about it. I tend to be quite a realistic person. From the point of view of the fact this Bridgend saga, if I can call it that, had been going on for a while was public interest, we could not get away from the fact that it would be reported. We knew we would have to take some distress from that. I think the way it came across was quite intrusive. Are you familiar with the Daily Express article? Would it be of any help if I passed that out? I have here the letter I wrote to Mr Abell and the apology as it appears on the internet—it is not a direct apology to myself, just the resolution—and the strips on the front page article from the Daily Express. As we started to read through some of the reports, there was one close friend of Angeline who thought she was speaking to the police when in fact she was speaking to a reporter. She was quoted giving information about the family, her stepsisters, also personal information about mental health issues that she had and that was part of my complaint. A doctor would not divulge that sort of information so no way should that have been on the front page of the newspaper.
Q281 Chairman: When you say she thought she was talking to the police, was that because the person made out they were police?
Mr Fuller: I could not say but for whatever reason she felt she was giving information to the police. She may not have been deliberately misled but maybe if someone said "We are investigating the situation" she probably would have thought it was official. I made a few points that maybe I could raise today. When the reporter quotes the words of somebody else, does that take the responsibility off the reporter for saying those things? I feel that it should not but I feel it did in this instance. If I can give an example, in the article, and in the response as well, from the Daily Express they say that they did not give specific details of the method used and they are allowed to say that she was found hanging and that was the nature of her death. They said they gave no more details about how that happened but within the article they quoted the mother of the previous victim who actually described that they found him hanging and he had used his dressing gown cord and they found him hanging from the framework of a built-in wardrobe they were having constructed which to me is quite specific. This other lady may well have said that in conversation. Sometimes when you are talking to someone informally you do give information but I do feel that should have been edited. That sort of detail did not need to be there. It was about somebody else. I do not know whether Angeline would have read that information printed beforehand but Angeline too used a dressing gown cord so we just have this thought. I do believe that some of these youngsters were influenced by the publicity, not of the minute detail but the method. A big question has been asked why all bar one of the victims used hanging as their form of death. The question is why, because people who commit suicide or are desperate, in my view, go through a process of thinking how shall I do it; is it going to hurt; will I suffer. There can be a desperate moment and I am sure all of them suffered that desperate moment where you do not care what you do and it just happens but the questions other people are asking is why did they all choose this method. Angeline was reported as number 14. How many do you need to go down the line saying they hanged themselves, they hanged themselves, they hanged themselves? If somebody is thinking "I want help, what do I do" is it not known to be the way to do it? I notice articles more recently have said harmed themselves. Somebody was rushed to hospital and died as a consequence of harming themselves. You think they have harmed themselves, what did they do? You are none the wiser whether they cut themselves, took an overdose, tried to hang themselves or what. To me personally I feel that is as far as it should go into these instances. If you want to say it is self-harm, it does not give any clues to anybody else as to what happened. If somebody is in a vulnerable situation, mentally unbalanced, they have got problems, suicidal tendencies, they are going to be thinking about what to do. As I said, Angeline was fairly new to Bridgend but she had friends. If she is reading that this is how it is done, it obviously succeeds because they died, it was reported on; they got the publicity. Whether the memorial pages on the internet have any bearing it is not for me to say. They are there. Various people have views on that.
Q282 Chairman: One of the things we have heard, which is certainly distressing to some families in Bridgend, was the fact that not only did they have to cope with the press coverage immediately after the suicide occurred but it kept coming back because every time another one occurred all the pictures of the previous people who have taken their own life were reproduced. Just as you were trying to come to terms with it suddenly the whole thing is back seeing the pictures again in the newspapers.
Mr Fuller: That is right. I am grateful for the work that has been done to get rid of those pictures and stop that happening. Obviously it is an ongoing situation. There is talk of suicide clusters and so forth. It is not for me to say how these things exist and what the mechanics are but this article in the Daily Express again at the end listed the names of all the others so far. We did not have the picture gallery in that article. One big concern we had was my eldest son is eight; he was seven at the time. We brought him home from school and somebody else had my other two children at the time. We sat him down and said what had happened, that she was poorly. She had mental health problems to some degree. We do not know all the circumstances that caused it; the inquest is still ongoing. We wanted to help him deal with that situation. The big fear to us was that it was in the news. We kept him away from the television and newspapers for week or so while this the story was running its course but whenever another incident happened in Bridgend not only did we have the repercussion of the whole thing being replayed with all the names and pictures but there was the idea of what if this pops up on the screen or if there is a newspaper laying around and one of the children see it. In time they will come to know what happened and understand and deal with it in their own way but you cannot shield them from something that keeps coming up like that. I believe some work has been done. Those pictures have gone now. That is very distressing and I feel quite indignant that was allowed to go on. There did not seem to be any sensitivity there for the purpose of the report. Of course it adds to the impact of the article and maybe it would to someone who was detached from the family.
Q283 Chairman: The picture of your daughter that did appear, how did the newspapers come by that?
Mr Fuller: I do not know. It is interesting that the same picture seems to appear in both of the newspapers. I think overall there are only two pictures. The third one appeared later on.
Q284 Chairman: Had you seen it before?
Mr Fuller: I had not. I had not seen Angeline for quite a while. It was a picture with her boyfriend Joel. I would imagine that somebody has given a picture or it could have been lifted from an internet site. It was very widely circulated. I was surprised that all the various different newspapers got the same picture which makes me feel that it was perhaps taken from somewhere rather than given to a reporter.
Q285 Chairman: Was she on a social networking site?
Mr Fuller: I believe she was on three: Bebo, Facebook and Myspace. One had not been used for some time but Myspace she was using regularly. I used to keep an eye on it in a Dad kind of way to see what was on the front page. There is a little bit where you can say what your mood is with a photograph and things like that knowing that she had been struggling.
Q286 Chairman: To that extent her being on the social network site actually helped you.
Mr Fuller: Up to a stage. You may be aware that you can shut down correspondence and hide it to selected friends on the internet site. At one stage it was open so I was able to see who she was corresponding with and the kind of conversations that were going on, the sort of intrusive things that Dads do. Then it shut down and went private sometime before this happened so all I could see was the little bit you fill in with what mood you are in, snippets that are made public to everybody and a photograph. I could see she was drinking, that was obvious from the photograph she put on there. I would say the photographs that were used were not complimentary. They were not ones we would have chosen to give if we were asked. Because they were used in so many different arenas I do not know where it came from but I get the feeling if everybody has the same photograph it was not given by one person to one reporter.
Q287 Chairman: When you say it was not the one you would have chosen if asked, would you have been willing to provide a photograph, given there were going to be photographs that would appear, that you would like to have seen?
Mr Fuller: If we had been offered a process perhaps rather than faced with the media as an entity, if there was a channel through the police with one person perhaps with the family liaison. My sister had correspondence with the press when her son died unfortunately. It was two years before. He was 18 on his way to college and died in a car crash so a totally different set of circumstances. She had dealings with the press managed by the police family liaison officer and she was able to vet all the articles that came out from the local press. She chose the photographs and all this kind of thing and it was controlled. As a result she ended up working with a police charity helping others who have been in similar situations and lost children in road accidents. We were never given that opportunity. We knew because of the Bridgend situation this was going to get headlines. It could not help but hit the headlines. I am not daft enough to think that I could put my head above the trenches and speak to one. In fact it was said to me when I suggested would it help to perhaps give my views on what could be done to someone in the media I was cautioned that if you make it known that I am willing to speak they cannot then say to other members of the media do not speak to him. It would not be fair. I had to do an all or nothing approach. It would perhaps be nice to have a controlled report knowing that there was a need to report this in the context of everything else. If it had happened in her home town of Shrewsbury it probably would have been contained in the local newspaper but because it was Bridgend it had to go a lot wider and that is why we lost control. If we were still in the Shropshire area we probably would have had a call personally from the Shropshire Star. That is how it would have worked.
Q288 Chairman: It is an interesting thought. Do you think that there could be an extension of the role of the PCC, that they might actually offer a service to people who suddenly find themselves having to deal with the media having never had experience and providing advice about what they should provide, what their rights are in saying no? Do you think that would be helpful?
Mr Fuller: Yes, I think so. Basically the advice we got was through the coroner and the police. Sometime later the PCC started after this meeting was held in Bridgend with the various parents. You do feel that you are suddenly dealing with an unknown entity and you do not have any time to think about it. The only way I could deal with it was to sit outside the police station, before I started my journey back home, phoning work colleagues and family friends saying that I have something terrible to tell, stop stirring the dinner. It is the end of the day and I have to tell you something horrible but I need to tell you now because you might see it on the evening news. I was not given any direction apart from they are up at the house, if you do not want to get involved do not go up there. As I say, we started surfing the internet to see what the newspapers were about to publish.
Q289 Chairman: You did choose to make a complaint against the newspaper. Were you satisfied with the way that was handled and the outcome of the complaint?
Mr Fuller: I think I could have pursued it a bit further. I have mentioned about the material that was quoted which give more details which were unnecessary. I was resigned to the fact that it happened. It was months ago, people have probably forgotten about it apart from those involved in the case. The cynical side of me says they have said sorry but what is going to stop it happening again. They will slip up and put something else on the front page. They will cross the line and somebody will say they do not like it and they will say sorry and go away. I did not feel I could achieve an awful lot more. I was happy to say fair enough the flag has been raised.
Q290 Paul Farrelly: Was there a specific thing that led you to complain and say enough is enough?
Mr Fuller: Yes. Originally I was not going to complain and I was going to let it go. This is what happens when you get printed and we are not happy about it but when the meeting was called with the PCC I thought I could contribute something here. I know a lot of people have been affected by this media publicity. I was concerned that this friend of Angeline's had mentioned that she had tried to commit suicide twice before and she suffered from depression and that was included in the article. It was also included in bold the quotation half-way through the script, which you will see it on the print-out that comes around, that she tried to commit suicide twice before. To me that is personal information. They also published that her boyfriend she was living with was being treated for stress and anxiety and was unemployed which I felt very strongly about from a number of angles. That is personal information they had no right to give. Also he lived in a small community and, first, he has to get over Angeline's death, he found her there. How does anybody deal with that? He has to rebuild his life and he is looking for work or whatever to stabilise himself in that area but everybody has read in the newspaper he suffers from anxiety and depression. It could be a negative side to his character.
Q291 Paul Farrelly: Did inaccuracy play any part in your decision to go the Press Complaints Commission?
Mr Fuller: Yes, because it was on the front page and the headline actually said "internet cult death number 14". I did feel strongly about that because in all the other cases it had been established there was a question raised quite early on because these individuals had got social websites, they had put their profiles on there, one or two of them from Bridgend chatted to each other, surprise, surprise, that maybe they were linked and that is why they followed this course but the coroner and the police had on a number of occasions said they were convinced this was not behind it and that they were all individual cases. They reported Angeline had only been in Bridgend for a couple of years at most. I think it was in the same article the police had not made any connection between this and the other victims. Why put on the front page there is an internet cult situation? I looked up the definition of the word "cult" so I was not making stories in my own head. It gives the impression that individuals are in a little community of their own, perhaps talking about how they can take their life and get this glorification on the website which was not the case. It was definitely a question. I am quite happy to accept that there was a question mark over whether any of this was fed by association on the internet but the way it was presented was that Angeline was part of a group of youngsters, almost as if this was already established. Here is another one. This internet cult thing has taken another victim. How many youngsters have a mobile phone but none of the articles said all these victims had a mobile phone. Is there a mobile phone death cult going on? The youngsters do use these internet sites as much as they use a mobile phone, perhaps even more because it is free once you are on-line.
Q292 Paul Farrelly: The Daily Express apologised to you. Did that apology actually affect the behaviour of the Daily Express?
Mr Fuller: I have no idea.
Q293 Paul Farrelly: Did it affect the behaviour of the reporting afterwards of other newspapers?
Mr Fuller: I would like to think it did. I did notice one or two newspapers using the phrase "harmed themselves" but then more recently there has been another incident and told the individual hanged themselves. I could not say whether it has any lasting effect. The apology came in the form of a letter back to Mr Abell from their legal adviser who said they had sent information back around to the reporters how they were supposed to conduct themselves. They did not feel they had included excessive detail. I would disagree with that but I felt it was not worth taking any further. They did include more details in the quotation from somebody else. The items I have mentioned to you about personal details about Angeline's medical history and Joel's personal situation, the apology came in a paragraph in that letter which said we cannot really justify the inclusion and we apologise to Mr Fuller for all that. I did not get anything directly; it just came through this.
Q294 Paul Farrelly: The 16-year-old son of my children's godfather died in a tragic accident on New Year's Eve while messing around on a railway station. That made the local and the national press. I looked on the website of the local newspaper in the area and I was upset. I cannot imagine how my friend and people in families like yourselves would have felt about some of the comments that were made from members of the public on the story because the commentary invited views. Did you see any offensive comments that were run on websites belonging to the newspaper?
Mr Fuller: I would not say they were offensive. One thing that has concerned me on the subject of the websites is the fact that some work has been done behind the scenes with the police and the ISPs, the internet Service Providers, to have the pages removed. The only way to get back onto these sites is to log into them and delete them and of course once you are dead you cannot do that. Parents cannot do it and nobody else can do it. Some work has been done to have these personal sites removed. What has happened is in creating these memorial sites one way or another the person has managed to take a copy of the picture and the comments of that individual, in this case my daughter, and recreate that web page, but instead of having the conversations of that person you have tributes coming in. There is one in particular which comes up. Somebody has built this memorial garden. It is not for me to say as it may help millions of the people throughout the world because she has millions of things set up. She must devote hours and hours to setting these up for people all around the world who have lost loved ones. In my case just reviewing it there are two tributes which have appeared on the site from people she knew and the rest of them are from individuals on the other side of the world. You can tell from the comments that they have no connection with Angeline whatsoever. In a callous type of way what are they doing, just surfing this site, picking up the name of someone they do not even know and saying "God Bless. Peace you little angel. You are beautiful"? I am not saying it is not a well meant thing, and maybe some people specifically look at these to give condolence, but to me it is meaningless. I do feel a bit put out that somebody can set this up as a memorial to Angeline and anybody out there can post something on it. I do not think we have any control over that. If I decided to set up a memorial site for my daughter, I would not want other relatives saying of the ISP take it down because it is mine, I own it, it is my daughter and friends and family can put comments on it, but when somebody totally unrelated does is it how can you stop it? That troubles me but I have to let that go on out there somewhere.
Q295 Janet Anderson: Could I ask you about the meeting that the PCC called in Bridgend. I think you said this was the first contact you had with the PCC, is that right?
Mr Fuller: I am not sure if it is direct contact with the PCC. I was invited to join in the meeting as all the parents were invited.
Q296 Janet Anderson: Who invited you?
Mr Fuller: I think it came from Madeleine Moon's office via the police. There was a bit of a data protection issue when the whole thing started. The police held my name and address and Angeline's mother's name and address so any correspondence initially went out through them. I think that is how I originally got the invitation.
Q297 Janet Anderson: How long was that after your daughter's death?
Mr Fuller: I cannot remember. She died in February and it was about May some time.
Q298 Janet Anderson: That is what made you aware of the PCC and was it following that that you decided to complain?
Mr Fuller: It was. I did feel that if it was closer I would have given up the time and gone along, partly to be with the other parents as they are going through the same thing and to express my views and give support to what they were going to say. I think I had already got the gist of what they were trying to achieve because of the individual complaints. The press had reported the incidents but they had also reported the repercussions, the complaints that were being made by various parents saying we are not happy with this, that and the other being reported and things on the internet to that effect as well. It would have been an opportunity for me to say what I am saying here today, how it affected me and maybe things do need to be changed.
Q299 Janet Anderson: Your daughter died in February and that is when the distressing press coverage started. Were you at that stage aware you could have complained to the PCC?
Mr Fuller: I knew I could. I knew there was a PCC. I could have asked at the time but it was not a priority in the scheme of things. Realistically I felt that I could say something but may be it would drag things further than they need to. It was an article that was written. Most people would not know Angeline. Those who do know her were affected and upset by the article but as the weeks and months go by the people who did not know her would forget about it. They would know there were a lot of incidents in Bridgend but they would not think Angeline Fuller necessarily even though it was on the front page. I just thought let it go. The importance of something like this and the PCC meeting is to focus in on it. It is not the general public that can let it go; it is the people that are really affected. I do feel that is important. I am happy to contribute here. I would have contributed the same but it was a three or four hour journey away from home. Q300 Janet Anderson: When you say the meeting was in May, that was a long time after this started. Do you think they should have done that sooner? Mr Fuller: Maybe so. Maybe it should have been done after suicide number five. There was another incident a week or two after Angeline and then others cropped up during the subsequent months. A lot of work has been done. At the time everybody was at a bit of a loss. The Health Service was at a loss because this was going on in our community. Why are these people not being helped? Anyone in a normal state of mind does not take their life so what have we missed? The press had built their story from these incidents and it was obviously mushrooming. It is great if you have a story that you can add incidents to. From the point of building a story it is great because it keeps it going but it is a very personal and sensitive story. It is not about old buildings falling down or car crashes; it is something sensitive and horrible. Maybe the PCC could have done something earlier. Maybe somebody did not raise the flag.
Q301 Paul Farrelly: Have you looked back over the coverage from when it started before your daughter's death at all?
Mr Fuller: The only thing I have done is try to see whether there were Coroner's Inquest reports. Occasionally I have looked over the internet to see if there is anything.
Q302 Paul Farrelly: From your experience was there one newspaper driving this?
Mr Fuller: I could not say. I have not looked at it in that depth. The thing is that every newspaper carried the article. I have not focused in on the names of others and done any research to see if there is any pattern. Occasionally I type my daughter's name into a search engine and the same articles come up again right back from last year. Probably in four or five years' time they will still be there because that is how the internet is. You put something on there and unless it is physically deleted it is there forever. I must say most of the pictures have gone but there are a few still around. When that other incident happened with the girl who died some weeks after, I felt an affiliation with her relatives knowing that picture was out. Before coming here today I thought I will see if I can find that article to back up what I was going to say but I could not find it. I could not find the picture. I can still see it in my mind. I thought that is good it is not there. I would like to think three months ago I would have found it and some work has been done and that is the result. I am quite impressed that I could not find the picture. I cannot say that anything specifically has driven it but it is a good point that somebody maybe leading it but I have not done any research.
Chairman: That is probably all we have to cover. Can I thank you for coming and talking to us.
