The death of 14-year old Summer Mills-Metcalf is under inquiry at a coroner's hearing in Whangārei.
WARNING: This article discusses suicide and may be upsetting to some readers.
When Paula Mills tragically lost her teenage daughter to suspected suicide she threw herself into advocacy work fighting for change in anti-bullying behaviour and suicide prevention.
“Summer should still be here, I don’t want this to happen to any other families and I’m here to be a voice for Summer,” the mother told a coroner’s inquest into her daughter’s death this week.
Coroner Tania Tetitaha is currently holding a one-month-long inquest in Whangārei into the deaths of five youths in 2018 and one in 2020. They were all from Northland and aged between 12 and 16.
Whānau, education officials and health authorities are all expected to give evidence with Coroner Tetitaha already signalling “there will be a finding that all these rangatahi died by suicide”.
On Wednesday 14-year-old Summer Mills-Metcalf’s mother gave evidence and began by acknowledging the opportunity to speak an inquest looking into so many suspected youth suicides.
“I want to thank you for what you are doing here because I’m not sure if this has ever been done,” she said to Coroner Tetitaha.
Summer was the youngest of six children and was described as a happy, smiling “prankster” who loved caring for others and animals.
Throughout her life, she won ribbons for miniature horse shows and was the youngest volunteer at the Kauri Museum in Northland, dressing as an early pioneer for tourists.
“She would pretend to be a statue and then move and scare the tourists, she was a real prankster,” her mother told the coroner’s court.
However, things became tough for the Northland teen when she began high school with a string of events that left her feeling isolated.
Her mother said she first noticed when she played netball and no one passed the ball or talked to her.
As the short years in high school rolled by, she said her daughter became the victim of bullying, being excluded from friend groups and on one occasion being pushed into a wall.
“She was coming home telling me she had no one to hang out with and no one likes me,” Mills said through tears.
Being a tomboy, Summer decided to hang out with boys instead resulting in girls calling her a s*** so would spend most of her days hanging out with the school cat.
Her mother said she called multiple meetings with the school and arranged in-school counselling but nothing was ever done about the school bullies.
One day when Summer was being tormented in class every time she tried to take a seat, she had enough and reacted. She was immediately suspended.
“She was stood down for three days feeling as though she had been treated unfairly and the bullies had not been disciplined,” her mother said.
The bullying escalated to social media and Summer started receiving multiple messages from anonymous accounts with threatening comments.
When she submitted an essay on the local pioneers, the teacher did not believe she had written it which became the final straw.
“I removed her because there were no solutions, she had low self-esteem and was having massive anxiety attacks.”
Her mother said Summer called two help lines, one did not get back to her and the other did not answer.
“She thought ‘what’s the point of calling them?’”
Summer began schooling at a local health camp and things came right briefly but the online bullying persisted.
“She was devastated that boys she grew up with said everyone hated her and she was cringe.”
On the day she passed, Summer invited a friend over who cancelled at the last minute sending her back into negative self-talk.
“She started saying ‘she’s lying, she doesn’t like me’ and I told her it could be anything and tried to change her thought pattern.”
It would be one of the last conversations her mother had with her.
Following her daughter’s death, Mills said they welcomed students to her tangi and held no animosity towards the bullies.
“This was extremely difficult and heartbreaking to have to face the bullies so soon after her death and I’m extremely proud of my children for all standing tall.”
Since her death six years ago, Mills has thrown herself into suicide advocacy work searching for solutions and reasons why her daughter chose the path she did.
She discovered through her research that doubling the dose of a prescribed medication for depression, fluoxetine could have impacted Summer’s thought process.
“We were misled, no mention of any risk or adverse reaction or worsening condition, or agitation and aggression. Had it been discussed, it could have been the medication.
“These psych drugs can and do cause suicidal ideation.”
Mills said schools need to implement more policies around bullying where all children and parents are involved in discussions.
“The bullies need help as well. I don’t want other families going through what I am. I’m not interested in persecuting the school. I want changes because I know other families are going through the same thing.”
Through her intensive research, Mills found a successful suicide prevention programme from Finland, the KiVa framework implemented in schools to address anti-bullying.
“It’s about bystanders standing up, if there is not an audience then there is not going to be bullying because bullies like an audience.”
Mills said in hindsight she would report the social media messages to Netsafe but said at the time it was a difficult position to be in when her daughter was so anxious about retaliation.
“It’s a very difficult position to be in because you want to encourage them to go to the police but at the same time, you don’t want to overstep to the point they clam up.
“Knowing what I know now I would report to Netsafe and encourage my child to report to Netsafe. That would probably be the first port of call.”
Mills suggested to Coroner Tetitaha a toolbox that could be handed out to students with all the advice and information they needed when things became tough.
“It was a long battle trying to keep Summer alive and I’m not willing to sit back in vain and watch others go through what Summer went through.
“When things get tough, something else happens and I know it’s Summer telling me to keep going and not to give up.”
Coroner Tetitaha is expected to release her findings in early 2025 including impediments to access to suicide prevention and recommendations to prevent similar deaths from occurring.
Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.
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