Star pupil aged 16 kills herself after being diagnosed with autism
A SCHOOLGIRL who had just achieved a string of A* grades in her GCSES hanged herself after being diagnosed with mild autism, an inquest heard.
School prefect elspeth McKendrick, 16, had tried to fit in and build up a circle of friends, the hearing was told.
But while she was ‘happy to be odd and eccentric’, she found herself struggling to cope after her doctors diagnosed her with Asperger’s syndrome.
Last August the teenager was found hanged in her room with a note apologising to her family and saying that she wished she could have opened up to friends.
The inquest heard that Doctor Who fan elspeth, from Bury, Manchester, was a creative pupil at Tottington high School who had won a place to study A-levels at Manchester College of Art.
But her mother Rebecca Jack-
‘She felt she was being observed’
son, 47, told the hearing that she had become increasingly worried about her erratic behaviour.
‘She had problems socialising and making close friends,’ she said, adding: ‘We got woken up in the middle of the night when she was on the computer or at 4am when she was not sleeping.
‘There were behavioural issues that were beyond my experience of normal teenage tantrums because for elspeth, things were always black and white.’
In 2011 elspeth was referred to the Child and Adolescent Men-tal health Service (CAMHS) in Bury and was upset to be diag-nosed with Asperger’s the fol- lowing year. Mrs Jackson told the hearing that when she bought a book about Asperger’s, elspeth ‘tore it into shreds’.
her father euan, 43, told the inquest: ‘She was not happy about her diagnosis.’ he said that she had regarded the men-tal health team as ‘toxic’ and ‘more about her mother’s needs than her own’.
he went on to say: ‘She did feel an awful lot of pressure. She felt she was being observed. She felt she was in a fish bowl all of the time. She did not want the diag-nosis – she was happy just being odd and eccentric.’ Recording a verdict of suicide at the hearing in heywood, assistant coroner Catherine McKenna said: ‘She was a bright witty talented young woman and she had much to look forward to in her life.’
elspeth’s headmaster, Paul Greenhalgh, said: ‘elspeth was an A* student and wanted more than anything to fit in, but she struggled with the diagnosis of Asperger’s.’
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