THIS is the haunting picture a mum discovered in her 18-year-old son’s bedroom – after the trauma of almost being HANGED by bullies as a child made him kill himself.

Tragic Arthur Stephenson was just five years old when three boys tried to drag him into a noose hanging from a tree at his local park.

His heartbroken mum Jacqueline Peebles, 42, says the traumatic ordeal turned her bubbly son into a clingy child.

Anxious and introverted, he became an easy target for bullies and was taunted relentlessly throughout school.

Eventually Arthur, who had dreamed of being a voiceover artist and had funding for a place at university, took an overdose in his bedroom.

After his death, Jacqueline went through his childhood possessions and discovered a haunting drawing showing two figures hanging from ropes.

The mum-of-two, a delivery driver, says the horrific incident caused Arthur years of mental torment and eventually led him to take his own life.

She has now vowed to dedicate her life to campaigning for bullying to be outlawed and has won the support of MP Tom Brake.

Jacqueline, of Morden, Surrey, said: “Before it happened he was always full of life and he was beautiful, honestly.

“He was hard work because he was full of beans so I had to keep an eye on him all the time, but he was lovely.

“I let him out for ten minutes and his spirit was broken.

“Every day from then I watched my son get worse and worse and worse.

“The impact was huge. They killed my boy.”

Arthur’s life was turned upside down in April 2003, when he was cornered by three boys, two aged 14 and one aged 13, while at Slade Green Park behind his house.

They smeared him with dog poo, battered him and tried to drag him away from big sister Jayme, then 10, and into a red-rope noose hanging from a tree.

Despite reporting the incident with Thames Valley Police, they took no action.

And though Arthur escaped with his life, he became a “shell” of his former self.

In the years that followed he spent hours writing dark stories and drawing morbid pictures and suffered from depression, anxiety and hearing voices.

Jacqueline pleaded with doctors for help for years, but it wasn’t until the family moved to Carshalton, London and local MP Tom Brake intervened that support came.

Aged 16, Arthur was prescribed medication to help combat his mental health issues.

But his grieving mum says it was too little too late and the youngster committed suicide on November 1 last year, shortly after his 18th birthday.

Jacqueline said: “I’m not a hateful person, but I have got so much hate for those boys.

“It is so cruel. They are out there lording it up with girlfriends and jobs, doing everything that my son has never ever had.

“He did nothing. He never smoked or had tea or coffee. He never had an intimate experience with a woman, he never drank alcohol.

“My poor Arthur never had a chance.”

“It has killed me too.”

Jacqueline has pledged to dedicate the rest of her life to campaigning against bullying.

She has set up a petition calling for bullying to be classified as a crime.

Top charities and figures in child internet safety from across the world have come out in support of The Sun’s Block The Bullying campaign.

We are campaigning to stamp out the sharing of vile videos showing children being attacked.

Whatever you’re going through call The Samaritans free any time, from any phone on 116 123

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