Children on the couch: One million teens suffer from mental illness

Douglas Moreton was one of a growing number of children undergoing treatment. His parents believe cannabis played a part in his suicide at 15. His cousin Cole Moreton reports

The number of children suffering from mental health problems has doubled in the past 30 years. One million boys and girls under the age of 16 are afflicted, according to the British Medical Association. That is one in 10. Douglas Moreton was one of them. He would have been 22 years old on Tuesday. His family say there is not enough room in this whole newspaper to describe all that he was, or could have been if he had stayed alive. But Douglas chose not to live.

He was 15 when he killed himself some time after 9pm on the evening of Sunday 2 July 2000. His mum and dad were not in the house in Ilford, Essex, at the time. His big brother Iain was watching football in the front room. Douglas made him some toast in the kitchen and took it through. Then he went upstairs to his bedroom. He passed the room where his little brother Fraser, 12, was still awake. He looked at the internet for a while, and telephoned a friend. Then Douglas took a bedsheet, hooked it over the top of the door, and tied the other end around his neck.

His father, Dave, was stuck in traffic or he would have been back at eight. That still hurts, six years later. Would it have made any difference? Dave, Douglas's mother Trish and his four brothers all have regrets, and things they wish they had done. "We agreed as a family that we would never blame each other for anything to do with his death," says Trish. Not blaming yourself is harder.

Douglas had been taking medication for his depression. The dosage was increased before his death. Did that make a difference? Experts now say doctors are giving antidepressants to teenagers too readily, and at too high a dose. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence says antidepressants should only be offered to teenagers in severe cases, alongside psychological therapy. But in 2004 more than 85,000 prescriptions were given to children that should only have been given to adults.

Stephen Coates, a consultant child psychologist from Newcastle, has seen a "steady and significant" rise in the number of referrals to mental health services for adolescents over the past decade. Domestic violence and bullying are partly to blame, but there are other factors, too.

"A teenager's need to integrate socially and become independent emotionally and physically is not new," says Mr Coates, "But it's increasingly fraught with difficulties as the dress code and physical appearance requirements for social success in teenage years have become increasingly complex and expensive."

Antidepressants should not be used in isolation or as a replacement for "talking therapies", he says. "There has been a great willingness to use medication to treat episodes of depression in teenagers without looking at possible environmental and lifestyle factors in any episode of low mood." Recently an inquest heard that an girl aged eight killed herself after watching Girl, Interrupted in which a character hangs herself.

Dave and Trish Moreton believe the cannabis their son smoked made his depression worse. Police chiefs are considering reversing their softly-softly approach to the drug because of links to mental illness in the young. Last week the super-strong strain skunk was linked to teenagers stabbing a man to death in Hackney, east London.

When Dave came home that Sunday he went to see Douglas, but couldn't open the bedroom door. There was something blocking the way. It was the body of his son. His scream was so loud the neighbours heard it. Fraser ran out of his room and found his dad lying over Douglas's body, giving him the kiss of life.

Dave could not bring his son back to life. Nor could Iain, who was trained in first aid, or the medics who came in two ambulances, with three police cars as an escort. Douglas was declared dead at the hospital. They said goodbye - with his other brothers, Alistair and Murray - in a side room.

More than 600 people came to the funeral, many of them school friends who chose to wear purple, his favourite colour. They told funny stories about him. His brother sang a song they had written together. There was laughter and a lot of tears. "He was very popular at school," says Trish. "He could never believe that about himself."

Douglas was loving and kind, zany and creative. It was not until 1999 that his problems became obvious. "He was losing weight, and sleeping all the time," says Dave. "He would have manic times when he was loud and active, doing push-ups on the doors, then at other times he would just want to sit on the couch and be cuddled."

Challenged, Douglas admitted smoking cannabis. "I think he turned to that for relief from the things he was thinking and feeling," says Trish. "But the very thing he used as a way of escape made the whole thing a lot worse." Dave agrees: "The drugs magnified the darkness. Smoking with friends helped him relax and come to terms with himself, but it also amplified his depression."

After cutting himself, and having panic attacks, Douglas was eventually referred to a local unit for an appointment with a specialist counsellor. The unit said he was not an urgent case. When his GP protested, the unit offered him an "urgent" appointment - for three months' time.

"He said to me, 'Mum am I going mad?'" remembers Trish. "I said, 'No, but you do need help. We're trying to get you that help. Just hang on in there." She pauses, before saying quietly, "I guess he couldn't. The wait was too long." The appointment was for two days after he died. "The services were not there for Douglas," says Trish. "They let him down."

The family chose to mark his death a year later by going to Alton Towers, the theme park Douglas loved. They scattered some of his ashes on the gardens there. "Then we each took a handful, got on Oblivion ride and when it was going really fast we let go," says Trish. "He would have loved that."

Six years on, the wounds are still deep and raw. "It's not something you can ever forget or let go," says Trish, 51. "We talk about somebody taking their own life, but if they are a part of a family that loves them they rip a huge chunk out of everybody else's life too."

Additional reporting by Will Dowling