Molly Russell died from ‘negative effects of online content’, coroner concludes

The teenager ended her life in November 2017.

Social media content viewed by a teenager in the weeks before she took her own life is too disturbing for even an adult to look at for a long period of time, a coroner’s court has heard (PA) (PA Media)

A senior coroner has concluded schoolgirl Molly Russell died from “negative effects of online content”.

Coroner Andrew Walker said online material viewed by the 14-year-old “was not safe” and “shouldn’t have been available for a child to see”.

Concluding it would not be “safe” to rule Molly’s cause of death was suicide, Mr Walker said the teenager “died from an act of self-harm while suffering depression and the negative effects of online content”.

In a conclusion at North London Coroner’s Court on Friday, he said: “Molly was at a transition period in her young life which made certain elements of communication difficult.”

He added the teenager was “exposed to material that may have influenced her in a negative way and, in addition, what had started as a depression had become a more serious depressive illness”.

The inquest heard how Molly accessed material from the “ghetto of the online world” before her death in November 2017, with her family arguing that sites such as Pinterest and Instagram recommended accounts or posts that “promoted” suicide and self-harm.