Mum shares heartbreaking photo of daughter in hospital on her tenth birthday following suicide attempt after ‘being bullied at school’
Lilly-Jo Caldcott overdosed on pills she found at her home after being taunted over her weight and attacked in school
A MUM has posted heartbreaking pictures of her daughter on her tenth birthday in a hospital bed after she attempted suicide following months of bullying at school.
Lilly-Jo Caldcott overdosed on pills she found at her home after being taunted over her weight . She was also physically attacked by classmates.
She was rushed to hospital on Monday afternoon – the day before her birthday – after her mum noticed tablets had gone missing.
In a desperate bid to warn other parents about the dangers of bullying, mum Jess Brown shared pictures of Lilly-Jo in hospital.
Lilly-Jo is seen in the pictures throwing up and lying in agony after she had her stomach pumped.
Jess, 27, from Droitwich, Worcs, also hit out at Lilly-Jo’s school, saying they failed to offer her daughter the proper support.
She said: “I knew Lilly wasn’t right on Monday because she wasn’t eating and seemed really withdrawn after school.
“I sat her down and she admitted she’d taken some pills. I took her to the GP and he said we should go straight to hospital.
“I thought my daughter was going to die. I am disgusted my daughter is being bullied yet nothing is being done about it.
“Nobody seems to want to help at all. We will not be sending her back to the school, it’s not worth the risk. The doctor said if we had left her two more weeks, she would be dead. I’m not going to bury my child.”
Single mum Jess, who has two other children, said she confronted the parents of the girl who has bullied Lilly-Jo.
But she claims they laughed at her instead of taking action.
KIDS IN CRISIS: How self-harming among teenage girls is on the rise
LAST year it emerged that cases of self-harming among teenage girls have shot up by two-thirds in just three years.
Experts warn increased levels of pressure and stress from social media use may be fuelling a rise in mental health issues.
Reports of self-harm among girls aged from 13 to 16 rose by 68 per cent between 2011 and 2014, researchers found. Among boys of the same age the rise was 52 per cent.
The statistics from GPs' surgeries found threequarters of self-harm cases among those aged ten to 19 were girls.
Yet less than half were referred for mental health treatment — with teens living in poorer areas the least likely to get specialist help.
Researcher Nav Kapur, of Manchester University, said: "Social media can be helpful in preventing self-harm but can have negative effects."
Tom Madders, of charity YoungMinds, said: "Teenage girls face a wide range of pressures, including school stress, body image issues, bullying and that created by social media."
"The NSPCC, which runs the free Childline service, said the figures were "sadly unsu-self-harming prising".
Jess also posted an earlier video of Lilly pouring her heart out about being bullied at school and her attempts to tell her teachers at Witton Middle School, in Droitwich.
In the eight-minute video, Lilly-Jo says: “There is this kid at school who is bullying me since I have been at Witton.
“It has been getting worse and worser she pulled my hair in PE and stamped on my foot, I was crying and she went off laughing.
“Then she was staring at me in the changing rooms and calling me fat.
“She saw me eating two crumpets, a drink and a turkey baguette, that was all I had.
“I’m scared she’s going to call me fat.
“Every time I try to tell the school, I told the deputy headteacher on Wednesday morning, we were spending all morning, until 12.35pm having a meeting to get the truth out of her but she denied it all.
“She has sent text messages to my friend and now they are not speaking to me – they have a picture of me falling off a yellow bench and I was crying.
“She said that if I don’t move school she will carry on bullying me until I get angry. I don’t want to kill myself.”
Lilly-Jo is now in a stable condition in Worcestershire Royal Hospital and is being given counselling by mental health experts.
Her headteacher, Cath Crossley, denied the school had not taken appropriate measures to investigate the bullying claims.
She said: "We were made aware of these bullying allegations and took immediate action, following the relevant school policies and procedures.
"Face-to-face meetings were organised with myself, the deputy headteacher and our chair of Governors with the families involved and the families have also been working with our support worker.
"This school takes all allegations of bullying extremely seriously, this includes racist, homophobic, gender-based or bullying related to disabilities.
"Our school maintains a strict anti-bullying policy, which can be accessed on our school website.
"This week is Anti-Bullying Week 2018 and we are fully supporting it. We are using this week to hold a special Kindness Week where children will be working together to create a Kindness Tree which will feature special messages of kindness.
"Pupils will also be undertaking some classroom learning on the theme of anti-bullying.
"Our thoughts go out to Lilly-Jo and her family at this difficult time."