Found hanged, boy of 12 who feared a telling off for leaving satchel at home
A BOY of 12 was found hanged in his bedroom after fearing he would be in trouble for forgetting to take his satchel to school.
Tyrese Glasgow only realised he did not have his books with him when his mother was driving him and his younger sister to classes, an inquest heard.
He walked back home to get his school bag, but when he arrived he discovered he had lost his door key and was unable to get in.
Fearing he would be rebuked by teachers for being late and without his bag, Tyrese failed to show
‘Torn between two parents’
up for lessons and the school rang his mother to ask where he was. Her partner later found Tyrese sitting on the front doorstep, but he ran upstairs into his bedroom where his mother subsequently found him hanged. His missing front door key was discovered under the handbrake of her car.
After his death more than 1,000 fellow pupils from Saddleworth School, in Uppermill near Oldham, formed a moving guard of honour alongside teachers and local residents as his funeral cortege passed through the village.
The inquest in Stockport was told that Tyrese had been a ‘giddy funny boy’ but was badly affected by the break-up of his parents’ relationship when he was five and he needed counselling to control his emotions.
His mother Katy Cross, 32, said: ‘He was torn between two parents. He would get emotional when he was really annoyed with himself or when he was in trouble. He would get upset and angry, like clenching fists. He would look angry at first and then he would be in tears and saying how sorry he was.
‘It would take him about 20 minutes to calm down.’
The tragedy happened on June 15 last year after Tyrese had won a ‘star of the term’ award at the 1,300-pupil school. Miss Cross told the hearing: ‘He was having a good patch at school but that day I was taking him to school when he said, “Mum I’ve forgotten my bag”.
‘If I had gone back through the traffic I’d be late for work. I told him to go and get it and go to school. He just didn’t want to go without his bag because he would have been graded “red” for forgetting his books.’
Miss Cross said he would still have had time to go home to nearby Mossley to fetch the bag before classes started.
After being contacted by the school several times during the day and ringing and messaging Tyrese without any response, she asked her partner to check on him.
He arrived home at 4.10pm, with Miss Cross returning at 4.50pm. She said: ‘I shouted for him and there was no answer, I shouted for him again and that’s when I darted into his room.’
After the horrifying discovery, Miss Cross and her partner tried unsuccessfully to revive Tyrese. Post-mortem tests confirmed he died from asphyxiation.
Tyrese’s father, Anthony Glasgow, 35, a former soldier who served in Iraq, said there had been nothing that gave him cause for concern about Tyrese. ‘The day he went a part of me died,’ he said.
Coroner Anna Morris recorded a narrative conclusion. ‘There is no evidence Tyrese intended to take his own life,’ she said. ‘He was struggling to cope with the complex and competing emotions that adolescence brings. But he was a popular and loved child.’
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