Two years on, father of tragic Molly still denied access to phone secrets
THE father of a 14-year-old girl who took her own life after viewing disturbing material online says the family still can’t access her phone – nearly two years after her death.
Molly Russell looked at social media content linked to anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide before ending her own life in November 2017.
The teenager, from Harrow, north-west London, was repeatedly exposed to disturbing images on Instagram and Pinterest and accessed the sites on the night she died.
Her family have campaigned for web giants to take more responsibility for the content which is shared on their pages.
And now her father, Ian Russell, has revealed they are still unable to access her social media accounts to get the answers they need. ‘To me, knowing Molly as I did, there is no question that what she found online deepened her depression and hastened her demise,’ he told The Sunday Telegraph.
Efforts to find out exactly what happened to Molly were thwarted when the family found they were locked out of her iPhone and iPod Touch. Apple said it was unable to access her devices as they were encrypted.
The family were given hope earlier this year during Molly’s inquest when the coroner ordered police to examine the devices.
But officers are still working to see what can be retrieved.
Mr Russell said: ‘It would be lovely to have access to the clips and photos that are no doubt on these devices and to be able to hear her voice again, see messages and understand a bit more about her life.
‘On another level there may be stuff on those electronic devices that throw a completely new light on all of this.’
He has called on the Government to give grieving parents legal rights to their children’s devices and online accounts.
‘I think as a family we have had to find ways to move on and get closure and it has probably delayed that’, he added. ‘It hasn’t helped, and I don’t think any family should have to go through that.’
Six months ago, Mr Russell accused Instagram of ‘helping to kill’ Molly with the material and algorithms used on its site. Weeks later, Adam Mosseri, the head of Facebookowned Instagram, announced he was changing the company’s policies to remove all graphic self-harm content and cover other images with sensitivity screens.