A TORMENTED public schoolgirl plunged to her death from a bridge after classmates bullied her on Facebook, an inquest heard yesterday.Hours later she was found dead beneath the bridge of the busy A40 dual carriageway.
Her father Steve told the coroner the events of September 16 last year “tipped Holly over the edge”.
It was the culmination of more than six months of bullying by girls from £11,000-a-year St Edward’s School, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
At one point, one of her friends told the inquest, the Facebook taunting took the form of open discussions about an invented medical condition, HGS, or “Holly Grogan Syndrome”.
Mr Grogan, 45, of Cheltenham, told the hearing in Gloucester that the girls’ accusations upset his daughter and made her cry.
They warned her not to come to a party she had been excited to have been invited to.
He said: “Later that day she received a text from the party host saying it might be better if she didn’t go to the party.”
Holly denied to her father that she had slept with the boy.
Still upset later, she asked if she could get into her parents’ bed for a cuddle at 9.45pm.
In the morning, Mr Grogan said he went to have a shower, adding: “My wife Anita went to wake Holly and noticed her bed hadn’t been slept in.
“There was a note on the desk. She wrote, ‘I don’t want to name names but I just wish people could learn to forgive and forget and be more considerate to people and let people move on’.”
Mr Grogan admitted his daughter’s problems began after she had lied to get attention. She told classmates her brother had died and her parents were splitting up. The results were devastating. He said: “You cannot underestimate how important friendships are when you are 15.”
He broke down as he told how much he regretted never having raised the issue of bullying with the school.
“Holly certainly didn’t want us to but, in hindsight, we wish we had,” he said.
“It was the wrong decision.”
One of her friends said later: “She was being bullied – they didn’t understand how much it affected Holly.”
St Edward’s headmaster Dr Andrew Nash said: “Facebook is something we worry about because it is so completely outside of our control.”
Recording a verdict of suicide, deputy Gloucestershire coroner David Dooley said: “It was clear she craved forgiveness for the lies she told and the desperate position she put herself in, and didn’t see a way out of that.”
dailyexpress
