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Secret diary of schoolgirl who was ‘bullied to death’
 A
SCHOOLGIRL who confided in her daily diary about her five-year torment
at the hands of bullies killed herself by taking an overdose.
Leanne Wolfe was found dead in bed at the family home by her older sister
Tríona in Carrigtwohill in Co. Cork in March.
Only on the day of Leanne’s funeral did her family learn of her
ordeal when they found secret diaries revealing her torment.
But at an inquest last week Cork County Coroner Frank Connell prevented
the 18-year-old’s mother Collette Wolfe from reading extracts from
the journals — saying such allegations were outside the scope of
the inquest.
Ms Wolfe told the inquest that the family was astonished when they read
the diaries as they had been unaware of the bullying or its extent.
She said: “The Leanne we knew was not the Leanne in those diaries
— I did not recognise that child.”
She alleged Leaving Certificate student Leanne had been bullied by six
people and by two in particular.
“It appears that she had put up with a lot of physical and verbal
abuse for five years,” said Ms Wolfe.
“She recorded this in her diaries and we checked her mobile phone
and realised she had been threatened on the day she died.”
Tríona Wolfe told how she found her sister lifeless in her bed
at the family home.
“My boyfriend Edward came and we tried to revive her,” she
said adding they then called an ambulance.
Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster told the hearing Leanne had died from
an overdose of painkillers prescribed to her mother.
The coroner recorded a verdict that death was self-caused and said bullying
of children was wrong.
Speaking after the inquest Leanne’s mother Colette said she was
disappointed with the verdict.
“She was bullied to death,” she said. “I think the verdict
should have been suicide through bullying.”
Just 13 days before her death Leanne had celebrated her 18th birthday
and phoned her sister Tríona to tell her about the bullying.
“You would have been proud of me,” Leanne told her sister,
according to Ms Wolfe.
Her father Anthony Wolfe said people needed to stand up to bullies no
matter who they were.
“You know your enemies; you want to watch you friends,” he
said. |
