Pupil at top school kills himself after quiz over dark secret

A SIXTHFORMER shot himself after he was questioned by police about a dark secret and suspended from Britain’s most prestigious roman Catholic school, an inquest heard yesterday.

Christian ‘Kit’ Mangles, 17, was a ‘happy and popular’ pupil and was said to love life as a boarder at Ampleforth College in north yorkshire.

But a text conversation with a friend triggered events that led to him driving to a beauty spot and shooting himself with his father’s shotgun last June.

He shared a ‘secret’ with the friend on the messaging app Snapchat and said he would stab or shoot himself if anyone discovered it. Police told the inquest this secret ‘would have amounted to a serious criminal offence’ if proven.

The ‘electronic conversation’ was reported to the police by a parent and Kit was arrested and questioned, the inquest in northallerton, north yorkshire, was told.

Coroner John Broadbridge said he would not reveal what Kit was questioned about because it was ‘not relevant’ and no evidence was found to substantiate the potentially criminal allegations.

The teenager was released after questioning without charge and under no bail restrictions. His mother Jill Mangles said ‘police seemed satisfied’ and she drove her ‘exhausted’ son home to Egton, near Whitby.

Kit was already suspended for three days for smoking but the next day Mrs Mangles took a phone call from Ampleforth College to tell her that Kit had been ‘suspended indefinitely’ from the £ 35,000ayear school pending the result of the police investigation. The mother Christian Mangles: Questioned said she had been told inquiries could take up to a year, meaning he would have to leave the school he adored to finish his Alevels.

She said Kit didn’t seem unduly upset and was preparing to watch football on Tv when she left to drive to the train station to meet her husband who was returning from an overseas business trip.

However, when the couple returned home, their son and the car he was using to learn to drive were missing. He had also taken from a locked cabinet one of the licensed shotguns Mr Mangles used for pheasant shooting.

Mr Mangles said he went into ‘panic mode’ and rang 999 and warned Ampleforth that Kit was missing with a gun. The school went into lockdown.

Police found the boy’s car on the north yorkshire Moors.

His body was found on the ground still holding the gun. A post mortem examination confirmed he had died from a shotgun wound consistent with being selfinflicted.

His mother said he had thrived at the school and there had been no warning of the tragedy. She said: ‘He was very happy and very popular.’ The coroner recorded a conclusion of suicide.

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‘The college went into lockdown’