GIRL OF TEN ‘ON SUICIDE WATCH’ OVER POLL BY BULLIES ON INSTAGRAM
PARENTS of a ten-year old girl in England have placed their daughter on ‘suicide watch’ after cyberbullies launched an ‘ugly or not’ Instagram poll about her.
The heartless post featured a picture of Mia-Lili Bennett, from Norwich in England, with the words ‘Who thinks she is ugly?’ written above.
The ten-year-old set up an Instagram account at the beginning of June without her mother’s permission but deleted it a couple of hours later after telling her mother. However, in the few hours her profile was up, someone copied her picture and set up the cruel poll. It is thought the account named puglife123456 was set up by bullies under Mia-Lili’s name to post the survey last month.
It was only last week that her parents, Corrinia Bennett and her husband John were alerted to the page. Mother-of-three Ms Bennett claims she immediately reported the poll to Instagram who have since removed the post. But Ms Bennett says the impact has been devastating with the family trying to watch Mia-Lili at all times.
‘I was made aware that this post had been going round by a friend. I reported it straight away and so did a few other people,’ she said.
‘We’ve had to put her on suicide watch at home. Her dad and I have to make sure someone is with her Online cruelty: The Instagram poll set up by cyber-bullies 24 hours a day because she keeps talking about ending it all.’
The concerned mother said: ‘She had hairbands tied up in a hoop on her bed and I had to take them down because I was terrified what she might try to do.
‘It’s absolutely heartbreaking. I never thought I would be dealing with my daughter being a victim of cyberbullying at such a young age.’ ÷ If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article, help is available from the Samaritans on freephone 116123, by email at jo@samaritans.org, or via Freecall Pieta House on 1800 247 247.