Boy committed suicide after suffering 12 years of bullying at school

Even at the age of four and a half, when he started school, Karl Peart was picked on by bullies. It was an ordeal that lasted for the next 12 years, ending only when he took a fatal overdose of painkillers in his bedroom at home in Lynemouth, Northumberland.

Karl's death came only two weeks before a second pupil from his school, 15-year-old Gemma Dimmick, who also claimed to have been bullied, was found dead in her bedroom, an inquest heard yesterday.

After the hearing Karl's mother, Sonya Peart, revealed the poignant suicide note left by her 16-year-old son. "Mam, I'm sorry I have done this, I'm not a nice person," it read. "I'm sorry I didn't live up to your expectations. I really love you, I'll never leave your side. Tell my friends I will always be there for them."

During the hearing at Alnwick magistrates' court it emerged that Karl had been bullied since a very young age. Despite several attempts to help him, he was repeatedly targeted by bullies, according to his mother. "We changed his schools on several occasions but it didn't seem to get any better," Mrs Peart told the inquest.

The schoolboy was found dead in his room on 1 June last year, having taken about 25 tablets of the painkiller co-proxamol with a pint of beer, only hours after attending a friend's barbecue.

Gerald Lee, the headteacher at Hirst High School in Ashington, said Karl had told a member of staff that he was being bullied by people in his home village as opposed to within school.

During the six months before his death, he had not reported any incidents of bulling, Mr Lee told the hearing. The coroner, Ian McCreath, recorded a verdict of suicide.

Mrs Peart vowed yesterday to campaign for victims of bullying by setting up a specialist website and she urged authorities to provide more support for children who suffered in this way. "Karl was bullied for eleven and a half years. It was nasty and it was horrible," she said. "I thought he was beginning to deal with it, as the older he got, the less he spoke of it, but it seemed he had just stopped talking about it. Sometimes he felt there was no one he could talk to."

Mark Henderson, chief executive of Northumberland County Council, which runs Hirst High School, added: "Adolescence can be a difficult time for some. We who support children through these challenges have learnt from Karl's sad death so that we can do all we can to prevent such tragedies happening again."

An inquest into the death of Gemma Dimmick will be held next week.