Plasterer hangs himself on web
Users’ horror as suicide is streamed live
A PLASTERER committed suicide in front of a webcam sending live pictures to an internet chatroom.
Gregory Tomkins, 39, is said to have hanged himself on Christmas Day on a site where users go to insult each other.
Police found him dead at home after they were told by others on the Paltalk chatroom called Apple Inc Insults.
One user said: “It took him 30 seconds to go from sitting down to hanging.”
Mr Tomkins, of Wallington, South London, was a regular in the “banter” chatroom.
Another user, who asked to remain anonymous, called for more regulation. He said: “It starts off with banter, but you are always going to get people who are malicious who want to ruin people’s lives.
“If you have got mental illnesses it is not the place to be because it is just going to make you feel even lower.”
Other users paid tribute to “lovely soul” Mr Tomkins – who called himself Yakka online. A poster called Putin said: “Gregory Tomkins was a funny man, he did a lot of funny stuff in the chatroom but also got upset a lot.”
An administrator spoke of the “frustration” of not being able to get through to police from the site’s New York base.
It is the second time a Paltalk user has committed suicide live online after using an “insults” chatroom. Dad-of-two Kevin Whitrick, 42, hanged himself in 2007 after friends who thought he was joking urged him to “go on, jump!”