Javid opens up on brother’s suicide
FORMER health secretary Sajid Javid has spoken about his brother’s tragic death and called for improved suicide prevention.
The Bromsgrove MP’s brother, Tariq, was found dead in a hotel in Horsham, West Sussex, in July 2018.
Mr Javid this week said he was left stunned by his brother’s death and added he was unaware of the challenges he was facing.
“It was four years ago he took his own life,” he said. “None of us in the family saw it coming.
“One day he was there, the next he was gone. I still think regularly... whether there was anything I could have done to save his life.
“Sadly he’s gone but what we’ve experienced as a family is far from unique. There is a bit of a macho culture sometimes for men not to speak out.
“He didn’t talk to anyone about this, and I think for anyone that might even be listening that might have suicidal thoughts, or they think a friend might have, the most important thing is to talk to someone. A family, a work colleague, another loved one, the Samaritans.”
Mr Javid, whose parents came to the UK from Pakistan in the 1960s, suggested that a reluctance to engage in conversations about mental health remains in some minority communities.
He said: “When it comes to suicide prevention, you quickly learn about disparities and challenges, particularly in certain communities.
“When Tariq took his own life, there were members in the Asian community who said ‘don’t say that he took his own life, don’t talk about that, just say that he had an accident’.”
He also criticised the government for “taking too long” to tackle online safety, referencing the inquest into the death of Molly Russell, which concluded the 14-year-old died from the “negative effects of online content.” Mr Javid said: “It is an offence under the current suicide act to encourage or incite someone to kill themselves.
“But there’s a huge gap when it comes to covering digital communication. We were all reminded of that just last week with the coroner’s report into the tragic death of Molly Russell – you had Ian Russell on your programme, who talked about it so powerfully – and so that needs to happen, but the government’s taking too long. “When I was Home Secretary, alongside Jeremy Wright the culture secretary, we introduced the white paper on online harm, and here we are, four years later, nothing has happened.”