1000 Facebook friends, but none of them helped her

Simone Back. Photo / Supplied

The mother of a British woman who announced her intention to commit suicide to more than 1000 of her Facebook friends has angrily demanded why not one of them came to her daughter's aid before she died.

Simone Back, 42, from Brighton, took an overdose of pills on Christmas Day and posted a brief suicide note that evening on the social networking site expressing her intention to die.

Friends who lived outside the city urged others in Brighton to check on her, but the calls went unread or unheeded. Police found her the next day and she was pronounced dead in hospital.

Her 60-year-old mother, Jennifer Langridge, was not alerted to the Facebook message until Boxing Day afternoon, 17 hours after her daughter's original posting. She dialled emergency services but when police broke into the flat, Back was unconscious.

"Nobody told me anything about it until the following day when I was sent a text saying: 'Get help,"' Langridge said. "It is upsetting to think nobody did anything for my daughter."

Langridge, who is disabled and has limited mobility, believed more could have been done.

"Normally when she takes overdoses I get help for her," she said.

Friends also expressed anger that Back's threat to kill herself was not taken more seriously.

Samantha Pia Owen, 48, from Southampton, said: "Somebody could have helped. They were all posting how much they care for her but someone should have at least popped round to see that she was okay.

Posts on Back's Facebook page reveal many of her friends did not take her suicide threats seriously because she had threatened to kill herself before. At 10.53pm on Christmas Day, Back posted the suicide note, part of which read: "Took all my pills, be dead soon so bye bye everyone."

One friend wrote: "Did ya'll catch the part about Simone taking a shytload of pills? ... the 'bye bye' part? Did anyone go by personally and check on Simone ... or call 911? What's wrong with you people?"

Another friend replied: "She does it all the time, takes all of her pills."

Her Facebook page was filled with tributes yesterday.

- INDEPENDENT