Bethany, who was described by her school as an “outstanding pupil”, had quarrelled with her brother over something trivial, the same way siblings are known to do.
Her mother described her daughter as a “reliable and capable” girl with a lot of common sense and said that she had been happy and chatty the previous evening and they talked about how Bethany spent more time in her room, to which she’d answered:
“Mum, I’m a teenager.”
After Bethany argued with her brother, she left for her lessons at Calder High School in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire. It was heard that during her lessons that day, she used ink to write ‘I hate my brother’ on her left arm. She was known to constantly scribble things on her body. After leaving school, the teenager met her new boyfriend for a walk in the local park before catching the bus home to have her tea. Bethany’s accountant father, Richard, was still at work when she got home and her older brother had gone to the cinema with his girlfriend. Her mother Estelle said Bethany took her dinner upstairs and played music. She said when Ben returned home with his girlfriend, he was asked to take a basket of laundry upstairs and there he found his sister hanging. He and his girlfriend quickly untied Bethany and gave her CPR.
When she remained unresponsive, she was rushed to Calderdale Royal Hospital and then transferred to Leeds General Infirmary, but her brain had been starved of oxygen and she died on 25 June 2016.
Bethany’s father said in a statement: “I cannot understand why Beth has done this. This is the last thing I ever expected to happen – it was out of the blue.”
