The Bridgend Suicides

i'd kill myself if i lived in wales too

Mrs Moon said she was growing increasingly worried by the appearance of so-called "memory walls" on networking sites like Bebo, where members leave messages to mark the death of a friend.

clearly an unhealthy practice.

I read the title as 'Brideshead Suicides', and was concerned about Passant.

DG beat me to the punchline.

high five

nothing could possibly romanticise suicide - what rot!

Dale Crole, 18, from Porthcawl, went missing Sept 2006, body found Jan 2007
David Dilling, 19, Pyle, found hanging near home, Feb 2007
Thomas Davies, 20, North Cornelly, found hanged, Feb 2007, friends with Dale and David
Zachary Barnes, 17, Bridgend, found hanged
Liam Clarke, 20, Bridgend, found hanged in park, friend of Dale
Gareth Morgan, 27, Bridgend, found hanged at home, knew Liam
Natasha Randall, 17, Blaengarw, found hanged at home, friend of Liam

is the 27 yr old the one whose father has gone on the record saying that he didn't believe his suicide was related to the others. Coz if so that would kinda make sense -- ok so maybe he "knew Liam" but given the age gap it is somewhat unlikely they were best mates.

The parents of a girl who tried to hang herself do not believe her attempt is linked to the suicides of seven other teenagers in the same town.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1302376,00.html

LBZC were gonna do this but figured we still had something to offer the world.

mind you those halifax ads are pushing me close to tha edge

K St Claire, 18, from Porthcawl, left ILX August 2007
L Jagger, 19, Pyle, found logged out, Jan 2008
T M T H I A Q It, 20, North Cornelly, found logged out, Feb 2008, friends with Jagger and St Claire
N Vague, 17, Bridgend, found logged out
DG 20, Bridgend, found logged out at work, friend of N Vague
Gareth, 27, Bridgend, found logged out at home, knew DG
D Passantino, 17, Blaengarw, found logged out at home, friend of DG

LBZC were gonna do this but figured we still had something to offer the world.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, 25 January 2008 14:14 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51B8G9ZG57L._AA240_.jpg

Whats romantic about being dead? And why want people to post messages about you once you are gone and buried - I cant understand it.

Wendy, UK

Recommended by 8 people

^^^Voice of reason.

Woo hoo! Thread about my hometown!

tell us more about your hometown, Nate.

I read the title as 'Brideshead Suicides', and was concerned about Passant.

-- marianna lcl

As long as you keep him away from Tangier everyhing should be fine.

It's a shithole.

L Jagger, 19, Pyle, found logged out, Jan 2008

lol

It's got a huge amount of pubs relative to the size of the actual place, along with kebab shops, hairdressers and pound shops. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday all the pubs chuck out at the same time onto the same pedestrianised street, and mass brawls are pretty much guaranteed to break out several times every night.

That's Bridgend town, but Porthcawl, Pyle, North Cornelly and Blaengarw are smaller towns in Bridgend county. Apart from Porthcawl, which is by the sea so has beaches and a funfair and is a bit better but full of wankers, they're much much worse, particularly North Cornelly, which makes Bridgend town look like New York.

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/ug/eardley/atom_bomb_2.jpg

we'd be doing them a favour

Whats romantic about being dead? And why want people to post messages about you once you are gone and buried - I cant understand it.

Wendy, UK

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/2082189/2/istockphoto_2082189_the_glorious_dead.jpg

^^^^ BAN

It is happening, again.

Police probing deaths of cousins

Police are insisting the deaths of two cousins from Bridgend are not linked to 14 apparent suicides in the area over the past year.

Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, died in hospital after "harming himself" and his cousin Kelly Stephenson, 20, was found hanged while on holiday in Kent.

Police said there was no evidence of a link to the other deaths.

A local AM said the suicides were spread county-wide, across a 130,000 population and seemed to be unrelated.

Officers were called to Nathaniel's home in the Cefn Glas area of Bridgend on Wednesday night and he died in hospital after "harming himself".

Friends said Kelly and Nathaniel were "very close".

Relatives confirmed she had been told about what happened to Nathaniel before he died.

Ms Stephenson, who was on holiday in Folkestone, told a relative she was going to the bathroom but when she did not come downstairs they went to investigate and found her dead.

A review by police of other suspected suicides in the area is expected to report next week.

But local assembly member Carwyn Jones said it was too early to decide whether a fuller inquiry was needed.

"We're talking about suicides in a county of more than 130,000 people not just the town of Bridgend," said Mr Jones.

"Some of the young people lived a long way apart and police have confirmed this many times.

"What we're looking at here it seems is a number of unrelated suicides. And it's worth emphasising that Bridgend is not way, way ahead of others.

"It was sixth in a table of counties at the last count - not something to boast about. But if it's the case that it looks like this number of unrelated suicides, it's difficult to see what an inquiry at this stage would lead to."

The Bridgend AM said that the county had drawn up a draft suicide prevention strategy and it was "now a question of making sure the strategy was looked at and put into place".

He added that the area had lower unemployment and crime rates than London and local people felt "put upon" with some media coverage.

"There have been a number of lurid stories published in London about internet pacts and deaths cults but there's no evidence of this at all."

One friend of the cousins Mark Bennetta, 23, who knew four of the other young people to have died, said: "I think it must be different reasons for different people, but we'll never know.

"I don't think websites like Bebo have got anything to do with it."

'Taboo conversation'

His friend Darren, 21, who did not want to give his surname, said: "It's just sad. I really feel for the families."

Paul Stockton from Samaritans told BBC Radio Wales that branches across Wales had reported a rise in calls from the under 25s.

Bur he said this could be because of an increased level of awareness of its services among that age group.

And he said he doubted social networking websites were linked to the deaths.

"If we were having this conversation 15 years ago when I was a teenager we would be saying: "Is it the telephone?" My parents could never get me off the telephone.

"It is just the way teenagers nowadays communicate with one another."

He also called for a new approach into understanding suicide, which was still a "taboo conversation".

"One of the things the Samaritans has been trying to do for a number of years is to get people to ring us earlier on in their despair.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7248213.stm

this is fucking weird.

there's a chapter in the tipping point about an epidemic of teen suicides in polynesia i think?

malcolm gladwell should get over there and sort everything out.

And another one

call torchwood

the people have suffered enough already.

i do get the impression this is some weirdness the local police are totally out of their depth with

yeah. their main guy blamed the media, seemed kind of het up. not very convincing.

I think he was mostly mirroring what some parents of one of the dead teenagers had already said - that media interest was making things worse.

that's ok then, we're not the media

Well, at least none of us are (presumably) doorstepping relatives and asking them if they think the internet's to blame for their dead children.

no he's saying the media is causing the suicides, not just that it's upsetting people.

the sky news website removed comments from bible thumpers saying the only thing that can save the kids of bridgend is prayer power
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1305988,00.html

Believe me, the last thing Bridgend needs is more prayer power.

horatio caine could solve this i think

Those sky comments are pretty scary in themselves...

Someone needs to lock up all the teenagers in bridgend and find out what the heck is going on.

If only Richey was still alive...

I think there is an environmental cause eg a toxin that causes depressive thoughts. Plenty of places have deprivation and associated social problems and unemployment. Nearly everyone can access the internet. So they should be looking for a environmental cause specific to this area. Why is nobody doing this?

how would that explain that it's all young people though?

a person's brain chemistry changes with age I believe.

The deaths are linked to use of the Mosquito™ ultrasonic teenage deterrent. Wait and see.

I blame the Stereophonics.

oops

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article856264.ece

well, if these kids are gonna kill themselves, they might as well be responsible about it

One mum in Treorchy said: “We shouldn’t put ideas into kids’ heads.”

Any ideas. At all.

http://www.booksection.de/v4/bilder/die.leiden.des.jungen.werther.jpg

to thread

I've got a first edition of that book. It's a Werthers Original.

Possible other contributory factor:

http://www.maxboyce.co.uk/images/treorchy_cover.jpg

Is that the leaked cover picture?

Geez it's Dad joke central in here today.

morelike Dead (as in dead Welsh teenagers) joke central

READERS! Did you see any or all of the FOLLOWING in TRAGIC BRIDGEND over the last two months?

LEVI BELLFIELD
MARK DIXIE
STEVEN WRIGHT

99% OF PUBLIC SAY: WE MUST BE TOLD

Bingo...Bullet for My Valentine are from Bridgend - with their depressingly awful nu-metal-core - are they to blame?

Bullet for My Valentine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_for_My_Valentine

Critical response to the album was mixed. Stylus Magazine editor Dom Passantino commented the band's contribution to the world of music is "basically a slightly uglier, yet similarly polished take on their genre than Lostprophets", awarding a C- grade.[11]

OTM

oh no.............another awful band from Bridgend.... Kerrang approved emo-rockers....Funeral for a Friend

Funeral for a Friend
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral_for_a_Friend

Systems thinking can solve this crisis.

Special LUMINOUS LAMPPOSTS to be placed in STRATEGIC POINTS in TOWN CENTRE for LEGAL HANGINGS.

Take the practice OVERGROUND - cut out the CROOKED MIDDLEMAN - RESULT: quieter STREETS and heightened HAPPINESS - NO MORE SUICIDES!

no doubt if Funeral for a Friend had kept their original name, January Thirst, they would be blamed for spates of teen binge drinking at the start of the year.

Meet the human doughnut