Schoolgirl Killed Herself After Breaking Up With Her Girlfriend

An inquest was held at the Bournemouth Coroner’s Court concerning the death of Sophie Clark this week, Daily Mail reports. The 13-year old schoolgirl from Sherborne, Dorset in England, had hanged herself last June after reportedly splitting up with her girlfriend.

Dr. Zoe Ellison-Wright, the consultant psychiatrist looking after Sophie, said that she had a long history of mental illness that was sometimes associated with self-harm. Sophie, who described herself as being bisexual or pansexual, had reportedly tried to kill herself before back in March 2016, when she had overdosed on paracetamol and ibuprofen.

After reportedly breaking up with her girlfriend, Sophie began feeling that everyone hated her. She told her father that she was going out for a walk one evening in June and didn’t return home. A man named Martin Walker found her hanged the following morning while he was out walking his dog through the woodland.

Sophie’s psychiatrist, Dr. Ellison-Wright, also pointed out that at one point she had had a boyfriend, before eventually breaking up with him as well. Dr. Ellison-Wright tried to describe Sophie’s complicated emotional issues.

“She described pent up feelings and small things made her feel angry. She said she felt it difficult to concentrate and felt her school grades were dropping she described feeling insecure about her body image. She said most days she would cut her arms legs and stomach and said it had become an addiction and helped her calm down.”

“She had thoughts she would be better off dead because then the pain would go away she thought everyone hated her, including her friends but acknowledged there was no real evidence for this.”

Following a late night manhunt on the day of her disappearance on June 2016, the Police received a call from a man named Martin Walker that he had found a girl hanging in the woodlands. Speaking at the Inquest held at the Bournemouth Coroner’s Court, Detective Constable Simon Bond described the morning they found Sophie.

“Officers attended the scene first at 9:16 am. The officers located the initial informant and located the female as described. Ambulance officers also attended and gave confirmation of death at 9:35 am that day. The area the deceased was found in was shielded from public view by dense foliage. There are no properties that looked directly onto it. However cordons were set up so the deceased and her dignity were preserved.”

Sophie was identified by her father, and the post-mortem report showed traces of drugs on her bloodstream. Her cause of death was determined to be pressure to the neck.

Sophie’s Psychiatrist, Dr. Ellison-Wright, also spoke about Sophie’s mother, who had died when Sophie was only 3-years-old. Dr. Ellison-Wright seems to believe that her mother’s death had had a lasting effect on Sophie.

“She said she didn’t think her mother’s death really affected her. She was three at the time. It was very early days in getting to know her, she talked about some things but there were other things she was just getting relaxed about talking about.”

“I think there was an element of grief of her mother dying. I think she wasn’t ready to talk about it yet but she was beginning to.”

The Dorset coroner, Sheriff Payne, concluded Sophie’s case by saying “Clearly she had been unhappy with her life.” He also pointed out how the incident had taken place without any sort of warning and says there was nothing that could have been done to prevent what happened.

“On June 14 there were no signs or alarm bells that anything significant was going wrong in her life. A female school friend had a Facebook conversation with her that evening. She expressed the intention of harming herself and that concludes with her saying goodbye. The friend said she had seen her at school that day and had no concerns for her at all. I think there was nothing that could have been done that would have prevented this.”

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