Girl aged 14 killed herself after boys at top school bullied her on Snapchat
A GIRL of 14 took her own life after being ridiculed in a vicious and degrading Snapchat group set up by boys at her school, an inquest heard yesterday.
Mia Janin was relentlessly picked on for three years at the Jewish Free School (JFS) in Kenton, north-west London, a coroner was told.
Statements from children in her year described how she was bullied online and in person before being found dead at home in nearby Harrow in March 2021.
A video she made hitting back at her tormentors led to such a backlash it left her ‘extremely scared’ to go to school.
Pupils, none of whom can be named for legal reasons, said there was a ‘well known’ group on the social media site Snapchat in
‘I don’t deserve to live’
which boys ridiculed and posted nude photos of female pupils. Some images in the group – which was said to include up to 60 boys from JFS and other schools – depicted girls’ faces Photoshopped on to the bodies of porn stars, Barnet Coroner’s Court heard.
The school denies being aware of the bullying, but in a statement read out to the inquest, one of Mia’s friends said: ‘JFS probably did know about Mia’s bullying. How did they miss the bullying happening in front of them?’
Police statements by friends and fellow pupils revealed how ‘on buses, class and at home the group of boys bullied her, and they still bully other students’. Another child said boys launched footballs at Mia and her friends, and that one branded her friendship group the ‘suicide squad’.
On March 10, 2021, a day before she was due to return to school after lockdown, Mia made a TikTok video firing back at two boys who had been picking on her.
Police said that in the video Mia posted, she said: ‘Don’t mock me then expect me to buy from your s*** fashion brand or put your awful Soundcloud [music] concoction that probably sounds like it was made by a tone-deaf toddler on my playlist.’ Her video was posted to the boys’ Snapchat group, triggering a backlash that left Mia ‘extremely scared’ to go to school, according to her friend.
In voice messages sent to friends, Mia said: ‘I am mentally preparing myself to get bullied’, and there had been ‘a whole f****** war’ in response to her comments.
The group was said to have been deleted by the boys shortly after Mia’s death on the orders of thendeputy headteacher Rabbi Cohen.
Mia was taken to school by her father Mariano Janin the next day, on March 11. That evening she told him and her mother Marisa that she wanted to move school.
The court heard that Mrs Janin, who died four months after her daughter, discovered Mia the following morning at 6.53am when the teenager’s alarm kept going off. Paramedics found two notes on her bed – one addressed to her family and another for her best friend. The note to her family read: ‘I apologise but I need to put an end to my pain.’
Mia also kept a diary, which police found in her bedroom. In the last entry, on February 12, she was said to have written: ‘I am so ugly. I don’t deserve to live.’
Coroner Tony Murphy said there was no evidence that any images or video about Mia was circulated in the group except for the TikTok video. Met Police Detective Inspector Gail Steele said police asked social media giants to disclose data on the apps Mia was using but received no response or were refused disclosure. The inquest continues.
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