Teenage girls in suicide pact

Two teenage girls who jumped from a tower-block in a suicide
pact had self-harmed and received psychiatric treatment in the year
leading up to their deaths, an inquest has heard.

Danielle Waddington and Lisa Utton fell 120 feet to their deaths
from the eleventh floor window of the block of flats in Southend,
Essex, in November last year.

Utton, from Rochford in Essex, had been in foster care from an
early age and Waddington, from Wickford in Essex, had suffered as a
result of the break-up of her parents’ marriage.

Police found unsent text messages on Utton’s mobile phone
which said both girls loved their families but were “not
handling the pain anymore”.

The inquest at Southend Magistrates’ Court this week heard
that the girls had known each other for about a year. They were not
close friends but were part of a “community” of
teenagers who gathered at Southend seafront at weekends.

A post-mortem examination showed the teenagers had not taken
drugs and were only slightly over the alcohol drink-driving limits.
The coroner recorded a verdict of suicide.