Frankie Lavarro

A mother Said She was left " in the Wilderness " trying to find out information from tech companies after Her Daughter took her own life.

Judy Thomas's 15-year-old child Frankie died five years ago after viewing self-harm material online.

The Family repeatedly tried to get information and were left " absolutely at a loss, " She told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg .

She and other bereaved families are campaigning for a change in The Law .

They want an amendment to the Online Safety Bill going through Parliament, which would allow families and coroners to enlist the support of the regulator Ofcom in helping them to get more information from tech companies about The Material their children were accessing prior to their deaths.

Frankie , who had autism, was found dead at her home in Witley in Surrey in September 2018.

She had taken her own life, after spending months viewing graphic content about suicide and self-harm on school laptops and iPads.

Ms Thomas told the programme The Family had had " no idea why Frankie had taken her own life".

At a loss to understand why, She had then contacted tech companies.

" We wrote online to Instagram . This went on for about a year with no answers.

" We wanted to speak to somebody and just say, Would You help us? We were devastated. . we just wanted to know. "

Ms Thomas added: " We would have really appreciated the platforms coming to the inquest as they were requested to. "

Baroness Beeban Kidron , the Online Safety campaigner, is working with the bereaved families, in calling for The Amendment .

The Group - which also includes The Father of Molly Russell , who also died after viewing suicide content online - has written to the Prime Minister , justice secretary, and secretary of state for science and technology calling for The Law to be changed.

Baroness Kidron Said there needed to be " a proper formal route for parents and for coroners to get the kind of information we need to see. "

She told the programme the inquest into Frankie 's death " opened and closed" without all The Information The Family needed.

" My inbox is full of bereaved families who want access to data.

" The Coroner service has not managed to get that information, families have not managed to get that information.

" It is inhuman, and the sort of distress that is happening all of these years later is unacceptable. "

Under The Amendment families and The Coroner service could contact Ofcom who would then act to allow them to legally obtain The Information they need from tech companies and piece together What Happened .

She Said The Amendment had support across The Lords and The Commons .

The Letter sent to the Government - and seen by The Bbc - says: " We have each lost a child in circumstances relating to the digital world, and we have each struggled to gain information we needed to understand more about their deaths. Sadly, each year, there are hundreds of families who find themselves in similarly distressing circumstances.

" The Process of attempting to access data has been inhumane. In some cases, it has taken years, and we have been left in automated loops, speaking to online bots, as though we were contacting Lost Property . "

Lawyers for Molly Russell 's father Ian have also written to the Government saying there is still, even five years later, information Meta has not provided to them relating to her death.

They say: " Meta for example, never disclosed records of what content was promoted to Molly on Instagram ; they disclosed some of the harmful content Molly saved or liked only weeks before The Final inquest; and The Initial disclosure was provided in a manner wholly inaccessible to Molly's family. "

The families will be in Parliament This Week pressing their case.

Meta, who owns Instagram - One of the sites accessed by Frankie - Said it has been In Touch with her family.

A spokesperson Said : " This is a challenging and complex issue. We have been In Touch with The Family and we want to help as much as we can during This Time . "

The inquest into Frankie 's death heard She went on a platform called Wattpad where users can write and share stories, with The Last piece She read mirroring The Method She used to take her own life that afternoon.

The Coroner in Frankie 's death Said The Failures of her school to prevent her accessing harmful material and Wattpad " More Than minimally contributed" to her death.

Wattpad Said it sent a robust witness statement to The Coroner .

Source of news: bbc.com